Something Simple
by Izaranna
Summary: "If wishes were fishes," she said solemnly, her finger wagging in his face. "We'd all be a Tsunayoshi." He blinked at her then, and asked, "What does that have to do with me cleaning up my side of the room?" She sighed at him. "Silly Tsuna." And as she went about cleaning his side of the room like she always did, he concluded firmly that his imouto was just plain weird. SI Twin-fic
1. The First Introduction

**Something Simple**

 _'I watch some people and wonder how they made their way out the birth canal.'_

* * *

It's a common misconception among the residents of Namimori that Sawada Iemitsu and Sawada Nana were a normal, obliviously-in-love couple.

Of course, the husband looked foreign, and no one quite knew what kind of construction work entailed associating oneself with corporate suits of shady origins, but that was easily ignored in favour of focussing on the sheer stupidity he conducted himself with.

Then, on the other hand, was his wife, who was so ridiculously gullible that, not only had Furushima-san from next door sold her a crateful of suspiciously acquired eggs, he had also felt tremendously guilty about it, to the point where he now provides the newlyweds a weekly supply of the freshest fruits from his son's stall for free.

Other than that however, there was nothing really out of place about this couple, and in a town rife with unexplained and stringently ignored yakuza activity, the Sawada family was happily integrated without a hitch.

On the fourteenth of October, the very first year Sawada Iemitsu and Nana had lived in Namimori, when autumn graced the sleepy town, burning its trees in a blaze of oranges, reds and yellows, and tipping the temperature just a few degrees shy of unpleasantly cold, Sawada Nana gave birth to two healthy children, a boy and a girl.

Sawada Iemitsu took one look at his twins and proclaimed them to be the Most Adorable Beings he had ever laid eyes on. If he had tears in his eyes, no one mentioned it, for fear of being engulfed in a bear hug that few in history had ever recovered from.

"Anata," said his beautifully ordinary wife. "Have we decided on a name yet?"

For Sawada Nana, her husband's decisions were her decisions as well, hence the 'we' rather than the 'you'.

He gazed at his tortilla-wrapped babies in contemplation. Sawada Nana calmly brushed the downy hair of her son lovingly as her husband ran through about a dozen possibilities, scrounging around his brain for the perfect names.

He struck upon them, and the resultant smile on his face was blinding in its intensity.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi." he said proudly, placing a calloused hand on his eldest child's forehead, before moving his other hand to stroke his daughter's soft cheek.

"And Sawada Nadeshiko."

Nana hummed in happiness, and the twins' fates were sealed.

"Tsu-kun and Na-chan!"

While the newlywed couple basked in their good fortune with hearty laughs and secret smiles, the younger of the twins blinked blearily, sleep having fled for a few short moments. In the three heartbeats it took for her to regain her bearings, she registered the irrational need for milk, the unaccountable need to start crying if she didn't obtain said milk immediately, and the annoying voice in her head telling her that all of this was just plain _wrong_.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on which way the situation was looked at, she lost her hold on lucidity soon enough and promptly fell asleep once more.

* * *

 _It'll get longer. I promise. Review please?_


	2. The Sleepy Awareness

**Something Simple**

 _'Dear sleep,  
I know we had problems when I was younger, but I love you now.  
Sincerely, Me.'_

* * *

Three days later, after the vaccinations had been doled out and the birth certificates had been written up to everybody's satisfaction, Tsunayoshi and Nadeshiko were taken home by their terrifyingly enthusiastic parents.

Tsunayoshi had begun crying the minute they had set foot into the Sawada residence, and his cries, however adorable they might have been to his parents, were not appreciated by the elderly neighbours.

"Ah, Tsu-kun! Are you hungry? Do you need your diaper changed?" fussed Nana, fumbling to unclasp her shoes while holding Nadeshiko steady in her arms.

Iemitsu, seeing his wife's difficulty, tried to help her the best way he knew how. "Here Nana, let me hold Nade."

"That's a really good idea anata!" agreed Nana enthusiastically, transferring the sleeping girl to her father's arms while she focussed on taking off her shoes.

Unfortunately, for various reasons that ranged from Tsunayoshi wiggling in his cocoon to Nadeshiko waking up and screaming bloody murder, Iemitsu nearly dropped both the twins in the four seconds he'd held them in his arms.

How he manoeuvred the twins to hold them both was a mystery no one on the earth would ever solve.

"Ah, Tsu-kun, Na-chan! Anata, bring them in here ne?" called Nana from the kitchen, having already reached there to start preparing a meal for her husband.

"Coming Nana!" yelled Iemitsu, irritating both of his twins. This then prompted Tsunayoshi to start mimicking his little sister, with a lot more snot and a lot less terrified horror.

And this marked the auspicious beginning of the Sawada family's new life.

* * *

The first few times she'd been lucid enough to register her surroundings, Sawada Nadeshiko had had absolutely no idea what was going on. In the end however, she opted to go back to sleep, because no alarm was blaring, her baby wasn't crying, neither one of her parents were ranting at her for her bad life choices, and her stupid excuse for a boyfriend wasn't banging on the door in either apology or anger.

Yes, she simply went back to sleep.

After the fifth time she'd bobbed into awareness from her sluggish peace, Nadeshiko had had something in her mouth that felt a bit like rubber, smelt a bit like her baby, and tasted like a long forgotten memory.

The next couple of times were a lot less lucid, and Nadeshiko had absolutely no idea what was going on, but the nagging feeling in the back of her mind was telling her that there was something major that she was missing, and that she'd best get up and figure out what it was.

But then, she was feeling rather sleepy, so she simply went back to doing just what she'd been doing previously—sleeping.

In and out of foggy dreams and misty memories, seesawing between near-panic and complete-chill, climbing out of the quagmire of sluggishness and lassitude before falling right back in with a plop and floating away on a cloud of quiet…

Once or twice, during those moments of awareness, she'd felt someone next to her, something soft and squishy and who smelled like clean baby.

She thought it was her baby, and she held the someone close to her with her lethargic hands and listless body. Sometimes, she thought her baby held her too, but she wasn't too certain about this. It didn't stop her from feeling a warm happiness though.

The first time she broke out of the weariness, the first time she registered the wrongness of her situation, was also the first time she breathed the air of the Sawada residence.

It all started fairly normally.

A sweet-scented woman carried her with warm arms and the impression of a smile, a gruff-sounding man keeping pace with them and carding a hand through her hair at intermittent intervals.

They walked a fair distance, and Nadeshiko bobbed along with them, content in a way only someone with no worries could be.

 _Wait a minute. What's going on?_

She didn't panic at first, more confused than frightened. Had something happened to her? Where were Comfy Woman and Loud Man taking her? Did her parents know where she was? Had her pet bunny been fed? Had her good-for-nothing boyfriend returned her phone calls yet? Had someone taken out the trash yet?

Then the questions crashed into her one by one, each a successive punch in the metaphorical gut. _Did my boyfriend_ dump _me? Are my parents going to kick me out? Should I have just aborted the baby? Where is he? Where's my little honey-bear? Who_ are _these people!?_

As Comfy Woman opened a door and the foreign scent of mild cleaning products, pricey cherry scented candles and crude oil assaulted her delicate senses, Nadeshiko began to panic. The man and woman exchanged a few words and then she was handed over to Loud Man.

As the world disappeared from under her and she slipped and slid across a quarry of oh-my-gods and please-let-this-be-a-terrible-dream, she _screamed_.

And if someone else was screaming with her, she didn't register it. After all, she had enough problems on her own plate to handle without dealing with someone else's.

* * *

She was by no means stupid. Terrible as she was at making decisions, Nadeshiko, formerly known as Lucia, had never been lacking in the intellectual department.

Of course, she'd never used it—a combination of the lack of need to put effort into anything, trying to fit in with the cool kids, falling into the wrong crowd and zero respect for teachers ensured that she came off just a few shades shy of airheaded—but that didn't mean she didn't know how.

Or rather, it would take a real idiot to not notice how utterly _wrong_ being given a bath by giants making odd hippo noises was.

The baby laid next to her in the little tub the giants had placed them in was someone, she had decided quite firmly, that was not _her_ baby. She didn't know how she knew exactly, but there was a gut feeling that insisted that this one wasn't her honey-bear, the baby she had lost everything to have - her family's love, her ex-boyfriend's affections, her standing in society, her peace of mind, her fertility, her job, her education...

The new baby's hands flailed dangerously close to her vulnerable eyes but she, however, was too afraid to wiggle away from said flailing limb, because she wasn't altogether certain that the giants would catch her if she fell into the lukewarm water. She would even hazard a guess as to say that they would be worse than useless if such an occurrence were to happen; the way they only noticed her or the baby next to her was if they cried or cooed. If no sound was made, the giants seemed to get hit with cupid's arrows and started making cutesy noises at each other in a foreign tongue.

Even without understanding a single word they said, Nadeshiko very nearly barfed.

Not to say that she didn't anyway, and then wail loud enough to burst her own eardrums so that the blond giant and the brunette giant noticed that she'd gotten milk sick all over her face.

The baby next to her, she'd gathered from the barrage of words that assaulted her every day, was Tsukan with a barely pronounced 'a', or, if the blond giant was to be believed, Soona. They referred to her as either Natchen or Naditchen, and she hadn't quite decided what she thought about this form of address.

But currently, it wasn't just Soona and herself in the bathtub, oh no. If it had been just that much, she would have been able to handle it.

No, the blond and brunette giants clearly believed in conserving water by bathing together, because _they_ were in the bathtub too, getting thoroughly distracted with each other and nearly getting soap in her ear.

Nadeshiko blew bubbles with her pouty lips and blinked away the water from her eyes. Soona or whatever, began crying earnestly as the baby shampoo got into his eyes.

The giants, incompetent as they were, began panicking comically.

Nadeshiko made gurgling noises that, in her head, equated to a laugh.

And no, she wasn't really sure whether this was a fabrication of her wild imagination or not, but she was fairly certain that if she stuck around, she would find out sooner or later.

* * *

 _Thank you so much for the favourites, follows and reviews! I didn't expect such an amazing response! Please continue to be just as awesome, yeah?_


	3. The Expositional Reveal

**Something Simple**

 _'Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows.'_

* * *

Sawada Nana was a simple woman with simple goals in life and simple desires.

She wanted her husband to be happy, she wanted a happy life for her two beautiful babies, she wanted to learn new recipes, she wanted her husband to maybe cut down on the drinking, and she wanted the house to not look like a hurricane had blown in and destroyed her morning's hard work for more than three hours at a stretch.

Unfortunately, her husband was what one might politely refer to as a slob of epic proportions. Impolitely, he would be a drunk wastrel that was a drain on society, but Nana wasn't the impolite type, and she loved him with all her heart as well, so that was another thing to take into consideration.

Her husband, Sawada Iemitsu, was currently laid out in the living room with empty bottles of booze of nefarious origins strewn about him, reposing after a long, hard day's work of sitting around and doing absolutely nothing of value for society.

She loved him dearly, really she did, but she wished he wouldn't create such a huge mess on his days off.

Yes, Sawada Nana had simple desires.

Unfortunately, 'simple' doesn't equate to 'possible'.

* * *

Nadeshiko would readily admit that she had no idea how much time had passed, because one day flowed into another into another into another, and her sense of time was so ridiculously vague that it might not be passing by at all.

It might have been months since she'd first realised that her circumstances weren't quite normal—it might have been days.

However long it might have been however, what she did know was that she had company.

This company was Soona, or Sue, or Sukin, or whatever his name was (honestly, how many names can one person _have_?)

She'd initially presumed that he was simply placed with her for convenience's sake, that the minute it was possible, they would be separated.

Apparently not.

They slept in the same bed, were fed using the same bottle (sometimes at the same time too, which forced her to conclude this family she'd been born into wasn't exactly sensible _or_ well-off—fairly similar to her old circumstances really), were dressed in the same clothing, and were even expected to share the same blanket.

Then, of course, if all that wasn't enough, the brunette giant who she was fairly certain was a caretaker of some sort sometimes mistook them for each other.

Nadeshiko huffed grumpily, already feeling like whining for no reason other than to annoy the giants.

She was very bored, and she didn't like idleness of this sort, especially when she could barely turn her head without feeling like her head was about to fall off.

The squishy baby next to her, much to her chagrin, was able to roll over quite easily and was now staring at her intently with wide brown eyes.

With a pang that she buried deep _deep_ inside ( _my honey-bear had deep blue eyes, just like his mama_ ), Nadeshiko stretched out a hand and touched the baby's soft cheek as gently as her limited motor function would allow.

She gurgled at him and he gurgled back at her, his eyes widening in surprise. He tried to mimic her action, stretching out his own hand towards her. Unfortunately, he wasn't trying very hard to be gentle and managed to nearly poke her eye out.

Unbidden, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She lifted her pudgy hand to try and wipe away the wateriness, unwilling to be cooed over because of something so stupid.

What she hadn't accounted for was the brunet baby beside her bursting into wails, presumably crying tears of the apologetic variety.

Panicking, she reflexively began crying with him, and together, they brought the roof done with their harmonized noise pollution.

This breach in decorum was punished severely; the blond giant ran into the room and began rambling to himself about something or the other, before promptly deciding that what both his charges needed was a diaper change.

Nadeshiko attempted to kick him as he approached her, but just like the last twelve dozen times she'd attempted to harm the giants' person, she failed miserably.

 _Next time,_ she thought with thrumming determination. _Next time, I'll get him for sure._

He changed their diapers (even though it was completely unnecessary) and seeing as how neither one of the victims of his ministrations dared screech at him for his stupidity (lest he do something even more ridiculous to 'fix the problem'), they let him get on with it.

As he finally finished changing her, his phone rang and he picked it up, the mood of the room suddenly turning very serious.

" _Iemitsu speaking. What is it Lal?"_

Hearing her mother tongue, Nadeshiko perked up in interest. So this giant's name was Iemitsu? That didn't sound very Italian…

But then again, her stupid boyfriend had had a similar accent to this Iemitsu character, so perhaps he was Asian? She couldn't be certain of course, but she thought there was a fairly good chance he was an Asian with traces of Italian blood in him.

It made her like him just that miniscule amount more than she'd done two seconds ago.

" _Yes, I'm with my twins. Lal? Lal!"_

He was yelling into the phone now, and this distressed her—well, Iemitsu had said it, not her—twin. He began tearing up again and Iemitsu glanced at him before consciously relaxing his previously tense frame to put her twin at ease.

" _Tsuna…"_ he said, eyes softening as he put the dead phone down. He then exhaled deliberately and started speaking to Nadeshiko and her twin (Tsuna, apparently).

 _"I'm going_ _to be gone for a while, you two."_ he said, as though he expected them to understand. _"It seems there has been an information leak about you two…don't worry though, little potato,"_ he chuckled, seeing Nadeshiko's scrunched-in-concentration visage, stroking her hair in assurance. _"No one's going to hurt you on my watch."_

And with that ominous declaration, Iemitsu left his children in their cribs to go tell his precious wife that he was going out on an errand for a couple of days.

Nadeshiko stared at the ceiling for a little while after he'd left, pouting and worrying about this man she barely knew but nonetheless loved dearly, without even meaning to.

 _So_ , she mused, mulling over all that she'd learned with what Iemitsu had said. _This one thinks I'm his bambina, his baby, and that this other one—this_ Tsuna _—is my twin brother._

Nadeshiko, previously Lucia Chrome, nearly fainted at the information she'd just received.

She had also learned, ten minutes later when the brunette giant entered the room and bared her breast for lunchtime, that she wasn't going deaf; they were simply speaking a different language. It sounded _very_ similar to what her boyf—ex-boyfriend used to cuss in.

Nadeshiko had learned a lot about her new self that day.

Nadeshiko fainted.

* * *

"Eh, look at this Tsu-kun! Your little sister fell asleep without any lunch!" chirped Nana happily, carefully setting her son back into his crib after she'd burped him.

Tsunayoshi gurgled at his mother in the way only a four month old that hadn't developed much of anything in terms of motor or facial functions could.

Nana smiled happily at her son before deciding to let her daughter sleep; the doctor had told her that the twins wouldn't have a regular sleep cycle for a while yet, so Nana left her babies to their sleep.

Tsunayoshi rolled onto his side once more and intensely studied this _other_ creature.

Soft brown hair (just like his), pale skin (just like his), chubby fists (just like his) and—when her eyes are open—doe brown eyes (just like his).

Something clicked in Tsunayoshi's baby mind and, no longer requiring any further analysis, he snuggled closer to _Other_ and closed his eyes in peaceful slumber.

After all, _Other_ was famiglia.

* * *

 _Inspiration has struck and now I have her backstory properly hashed out, and her backstory is actually really important, but it'll come out in bits and pieces as she remembers it. What do you think? Review please?_


	4. The Past Repeating

**Something Simple**

 _'It's funny how sometimes the people you would take a bullet for are the ones pulling the trigger.'_

* * *

Nadeshiko blinked awake and was immediately blinded by the light streaming through the window.

Namimori was warming up quite nicely as the months passed, but Nadeshiko merely grumbled before rubbing her eyes and yawning. She then sat up in her crib, stretching her tiny body and realising that her diaper needed changing.

She would never get used to these uncontrollable bowel movements…

She looked in front of her and there he was—Tsuna.

It had taken her a while, but Nadeshiko had finally accepted Tsuna as her family. She'd never had a brother before and, though she was nervous going into unchartered territory, she was secretly very happy; she had always been alone before, and until that idiot Asian with his weird laugh and blue hair had come into her life and left her pregnant, loneliness was all she had ever known.

Now she had someone to share her life with, every step of the way.

Tsuna woke up too, perhaps sensing that someone was watching him. He saw that _Other_ was sitting up and, though he'd never tried before, he supposed that if she could, he could sit up as well.

Both fluffy brown-haired babies sat facing one another and staring at eyes so completely like their own, though neither one of them really knew that.

Tsuna cooed at her in the most adorable fashion, and Nadeshiko felt her heart flutter at the sheer adorability of her twin. She squealed in happiness and Tsuna, being the type that liked to make other's lose their hold on their sanity via cuteness overload, squealed back at her, shuffling forward and sitting closer to his little sister.

Nadeshiko needed to get her heart rate under control and so covered her face with her pudgy little hands. Being as tiny as they were, they only covered her eyes. Tsuna looked confused for a moment before realising that they were playing a game.

So excited was he at his discovery that he squealed in happiness again and quickly, clumsily, shoved his own hands over his eyes and wriggled in anticipation, wondering what would happen next.

Nadeshiko peaked through her fingers and saw the adorableness that was an excited Tsuna, and her heart _melted_.

" _Mio cucciolo…so adorable!"_ she exclaimed, internally combusting.

Tsuna cooed at her in a most endearing fashion, and Nadeshiko decided then and there that the puddle that was currently her heart was an acceptable sacrifice to see such cuteness in its rawest form.

Tsuna saw the look of pride in his sister's eyes and began clapping happily, his pudgy hands smooshing into each other and his heart thinking he'd won whatever game they were playing.

Nadeshiko flopped onto her side in cuteness overload, and Tsuna happily copied her with a giggle.

He gave her a very wet kiss on the cheek and snuggled into her again, and Nadeshiko, once more, melted.

* * *

Sawada Nana was a very happy woman on this warm summer's day.

She had gone into the Namimori marketplace and had come across this rather handsome man (though never as handsome as her darling husband, who was due to come home after yet another errand he had to run somewhere in the Bahamas. She was learning quite a bit of geography from her husband…apparently, the Bahamas were somewhere near Australia! So far away, ne?).

Said handsome man had told her to visit the temple, after hearing that she had no idea where that was, even after having lived in Namimori for just a few weeks more than a year. He'd given her directions and she'd happily been on her merry way.

When she'd reached the imposing structure, there were other people milling around, praying and chattering with their families and friends.

She'd begun mingling almost instantly and had acquired three wonderful friends, Fumiko, Sayuri and Amane.

And if Amane had stubble on her chin, Sayuri was clearly employing the use of a theatre wig and Fumiko was built like an ox, well. It wasn't her place to point out these things, was it?

They'd flitted from one conversation topic to another, until Fumiko, who had thus far let the other two do the talking, grunted in a false girly voice, "Let's go to Nana-san's house, yes?"

Nana was quite impressed with how fast news travelled in Namimori, because she hadn't even introduced herself and these women had known who she was.

"That's a wonderful idea! We can have some tea as well, ne?" she said chirpily.

"That's a wonderful idea Flavi—I mean, Fumiko-chan." said Sayuri, mentally slapping herself for almost slipping up like that.

It was a good thing the Vongola External Advisor's wife was a complete idiot, or they might have had problems.

As it stood, Silvio aka Sayuri was thanking his lucky stars.

Together, the three cross-dressers and Sawada Nana made their way to the Sawada Residence, right through the front door (the only entry point that wasn't riddled with traps of the death-causing variety. Iemitsu wasn't high up in the mafia just for show).

"Please, make yourself at home while I go prepare the tea." Nana said with a beatific smile.

"Ah, Nana-san, can we look around a bit?" squeaked Amane (whose birth name was Alfio).

"Of course you can! Just don't make too much noise, ne?" said Nana from the kitchen.

The three cross-dressers exchanged fearful looks. "Is your husband home Nana-san?" asked Silvio in a strained voice.

"Oh, no! But it's my children's naptime right now."

The three of them relaxed before swiftly getting up and looking for the potential heirs to Vongola.

Silvio and Flavio took the upstairs while Alfio kept a close eye on a humming Nana, ready to alert his companions if she moved out of the kitchen.

After looking into three rooms, Silvio and Flavio found the nursery.

Two babies, roughly six months old if the intel was accurate, were sitting in their crib. One was wiggling their fingers at the other, and the other was squealing in delight.

Silvio felt a bit guilty about completing their mission, now that he actually saw the two babies.

" _They're not even half a year old Flavio…look at them!"_

" _Shut up Silvio. The client wants these two dead; get on with it."_

Nadeshiko snapped her attention to the two men (dressed very unconvincingly as women) standing at the door and planning their murder.

She whimpered, and Silvio froze. _"Do you think that one understands us? I don't like this Flavio…"_

Flavio looked irritated, especially as Tsuna turned to look at the two newcomers with interest and gurgled happily at them. "Gah!"

" _Do it Silvio, or do you want the boss to know you messed up completely, eh? You remember what he said before we left right? No more second chances. Kill the Vongola spawn and be done with it!"_

Silvio gulped and took out his gun before pointing it at the whimpering child.

Nadeshiko was openly crying now. _Si prega di Dio, I don't want to die again…_

Her mind flashed to a day full of rain, screeching cars and banging doors. She remembered holding her honey-bear close, shushing him as he whimpered in her arms. _"Mama, I'm scared."_

" _Mio orsetto,"_ she'd said, running a hand through his dark blue hair. _"You will be safe. Mama will protect you."_

He'd snuggled into her, and when the men had burst in through her door, blowing it off its hinges, she'd already hidden her baby under the bed and cowered against the wall.

" _Where's the child Lucia?"_ her useless ex-boyfriend had demanded, and she'd gritted her teeth, the sting of betrayal bringing angry tears to her eyes.

" _Burn in the darkest pit of hell, bastard!"_

The man with him had pointed a gun at her head then, and intoned dangerously, _"Where's the boy you little slut?"_

She'd felt strangely brave at the insult and had spat at his feet. He'd pulled the trigger and the last thing she remembered was them yanking her baby out from under the bed, kicking and screaming.

" _Mama! Mama! MAMA!"_

And now another gun was pointed at her, and Tsuna would not die. Not on her watch.

Something deep within her unfurled itself, and her eyes saw no more.

* * *

When Sawada Nana had finished preparing the tea, her husband had returned and had slung one of her friends over his shoulder.

"Anata! Did Amane-chan fall asleep?" asked Nana blithely.

Iemitsu grinned and nodded. "Yes, and she told me that she was leaving Namimori. Permanently."

"Eh? That's a shame! Are Sayuri-chan and Fumiko-chan leaving as well?" she asked, not questioning the complete lie she'd been fed.

Iemitsu turned to stone. "There were more?" he whispered darkly.

"Yes. Oh, they're not in the living room! Maybe they went upstairs?"

Nana turned around to ask her husband what he thought, but he'd already disappeared, Alfio thrown onto the floor in his haste.

 _Please, please let them be alright..._ he prayed. _Please don't let me be too late._

He ran into the nursery, where Tsuna was staring in wide-eyed fascination at two transvestites with eyebrows that had somehow grown enough to reach their toes.

They also looked like they were high on LSD.

Iemitsu kicked both of the unsuspecting men in the back of their knee and smashed their heads against the floor before hurrying over to his twins.

Tsuna, noticing that it was his father, cooed in happiness and raised his arms, wanting to be picked up.

His daughter, on the other hand, had collapsed against the bars of the crib, tears drying on her cheeks.

Forgoing picking up his son, Iemitsu checked over his daughter's vital signs and realised that her breathing was terribly faint.

 _Well,_ he thought as he picked her up and rushed his family to the hospital. _At least I know who stopped those assassins._

* * *

A little later, when he'd taken care of body disposal and sent a very… _heartfelt,_ shall we say…package to the boss of the Pesca Famiglia, Sawada Iemitsu told his wife that the three friends she'd made had all taken a nice long vacation to Micronesia.

Nana, having never heard of this place, was very impressed and asked what they were doing in the hospital.

Iemitsu had no idea what to say, so he said the first thing that came to mind. "Nade is allergic to mashed potato."

"Ara!" exclaimed Nana in surprised concern. "I've been feeding her nothing but boiled potatoes for weeks now! Is she okay?"

"She'll be fine." reassured Iemitsu. "I've been to check with the doctor. We can take her home today."

"Well," said Nana in relief. "Do you think fried potato is bad for her as well?"

And this is how, for years after, Nadeshiko wasn't fed a single spoon of mashed potatoes.

Because her father was terrible at lying to her mother.

Iemitsu laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, before thinking to himself solemnly. _Still, I didn't expect that…_

 _Sun flames, huh?_

* * *

 _Cucciolo means puppy, which is what she calls Tsuna. Patatina is little potato, which is what Iemitsu calls her. They are both terms of endearments for babies in Italy. Si prega di Dio - Please God (like, prayer). Mio orsetto, my bear cub. Honey-bear just sounds like a mouthful in Italian (miele orso) so we're sticking with this for the English translation of what she calls her baby._

 _What did you guys think of her backstory? Thoughts about this chapter? Isn't Tsuna **adorable**?_


	5. The New Friendship

**Something Simple**

 _'You don't have to be crazy to be my friend. I'll train you.'_

* * *

Lucia (now Nadeshiko) would be unashamed to admit that she had been a very sensual woman.

However, what she wouldn't like to mention was that she didn't mind not being one anymore.

She had reached the ripe old age of one year and three months, and neither had she said her first Japanese word, nor was she in any way capable of understanding that the gibberish surrounding her _was_ in fact Japanese.

'Asian' is about as far as she got, having been exposed to that culture only minutely in her past life. For of course, that was what it was, she mused.

Nadeshiko knew that she was Na-chan, she knew her twin brother was Tsuna, she knew her father was at least part Italian and was called Iemitsu, she'd worked out that her mother was a housewife in a fairly calm town (barring that assassination attempt almost an entire year ago) who went by the name of Nana, and that she, as an infant, was very…weak.

Nadeshiko, who used to be Lucia, remembered very vividly a different world, where she had a harsh father, an unforgiving mother, a list of regrets a mile wide, and where she had lived in a little apartment with scuffed furniture, a small kitchenette and a vase on the only table always filled with flowers that her son picked out every week.

Yes, Nadeshiko remembered quite a different world. The verdant streets of her retreat, where she had thought she'd escaped all the pain and negative influences of her younger life; the sun shining in her blonde hair and kissing her creamy skin; the water sparkling and dancing with the whispers of the trees; the fragile chirps of innumerable birds and the tinkling laughter of a child as he toddled in front of her, picking the blueberries off the trees and squealing in joy…

The sounds of gun shots as yet another one of her neighbours was killed, the men being very thorough when looking for her little honey-bear.

Yes, a very different world.

Here, it did not smell the same—there was something of a spice that was missing from her lungs, and only now that it was gone that she noticed it. Here, there was a lot of bowing and cleanliness, as though they'd been trained from birth to be perfect little slaves to the collective. Here, it was not Italy.

 _But,_ she concluded her introspection, _it is still home._

* * *

Sawada Nana had decided that her twins needed fresh air, guessing rightly that her daughter's agitated fidgeting was a result of not having been in the sun since she entered the Sawada Residence.

Nana hummed to herself as she brought out the twin pram from the store cupboard, both her children eyeing her curiously from the drawing room door, which is where they were 'sneakily' watching her from, having crawled there as quietly as possible.

Tsuna squealed in half excitement and half terror at the contraption his mother pulled out of 'the dark place', and Nadeshiko tried to hold in her anticipation.

She had spent most of her life outdoors, and the past year had grated on her nerves terribly.

Nana noticed her twins and she giggled. They were so adorable!

"Tsu-kun, Na-chan, come over here to Kaa-san!" she cooed at them, bending down slightly and holding out her arms for them, in the universal gesture of 'come here so I can hug you pudgy little puddles of adorable'.

Tsuna squealed happily and crawled as quickly as he could to his mother, and Nadeshiko followed right after him, eager for a cuddle that her own first mother had never bothered with.

Squeezing her little bundles of joy in her arms, Nana couldn't think of anything more she could ever possibly want out of life; this was _more_ than enough for her – a loving husband, beautiful children and a comfortable house. What more could she possibly want?

A voice in her head that had been buried under heaps of excuses and faith, insidiously whispered _wouldn't it be nice if Anata actually stayed at home for more than two months at a stretch?_

But it wasn't in her nature to be angry, and so she let it go. Why hold on to something that made you unhappy?

"Would you two like to go outside?" she asked cheerfully, giggling as Tsuna head-butted her in his eagerness.

Nadeshiko didn't understand a word coming out of her new mother's mouth, but she supposed she didn't need to – her brother was doing a fairly good job at interpretation.

Nana took the pram outside, her crawlers following along happily. First Tsuna and then Nadeshiko were placed into the pram, and after being buckled in, Nana pushed the pram out of the gates and onto the street.

The first thing Nadeshiko learned about her new home was that there was a lot more concrete here than there had been where she'd been brought up previously.

 _Bred actually, all things considered_. she thought to herself dispassionately.

"Good morning Sawada-san! Lovely weather we're having, ne?" called out a plain-looking woman from her balcony.

Nana smiled and called out a, "Good morning Komodo-san! Yes, lovely weather, especially for this time of the year!"

The second thing Nadeshiko inferred from her surroundings was that it was that it must have been early spring, because there was a slight chill in the air and the clothes her new mother had attired her in were thin woollen pieces.

The third thing that she learned on this excursion was that she loved her brother.

Tsuna was visibly excited enough for both of them, his head snapping from one direction to the other, wide eyes taking in every moving object, drinking in every pink petal on the trees and every sign board in the vicinity. Every time he saw anything remarkable, he would grab his little sister's arm and coo at her to look at what he was looking, and then when she smiled at him in acknowledgement, he would squeal in childish triumph.

Nadeshiko had never known love like this; Tsuna not only wanted to enjoy his life, but he wanted her to enjoy her own _with_ him.

No one had wanted that for her before.

No one.

"Look at that, Tsu-kun, Na-chan! Someone your age! Let's go say hi, ne?" exclaimed Nana, happily pushing the pram over to another one of approximated similarity.

Nadeshiko and Tsuna looked at the child in the pram curiously and saw an orange-haired girl sucking on a pink pacifier, her light golden eyes blinking at the twins curiously.

Tsuna immediately began babbling in her direction, and Nadeshiko was proud to note that he had coherent Italian words mixed in with some of the gibberish.

Although what kind of story he was telling that involved sledgehammers, monkeys and pink tutus was entirely up for debate.

"Good morning! I'm Sawada Nana and I'm new to the neighbourhood! You have a very beautiful daughter!"

Nadeshiko could hear every single exclamation, and though she didn't understand a single word, she couldn't help but wonder how her new mother could stay so enthusiastic all the time.

A man and a woman were standing behind the girl's pram, and they smiled at Nana. "Welcome to Namimori, Sawada-san. I am Sasagawa Kaoru and this is my husband, Ryouta. This is our daughter, Kyoko. Our son is on the slide somewhere." said Kaoru.

Ryouta nodded at Nana and went back to watching a light-haired child sliding down the slide.

"These are my twins, Tsunayoshi and Nadeshiko. Say hi to Kyoko-chan both of you!" said Nana.

Nadeshiko looked at Nana with wide, uncomprehending eyes, wondering what on earth her new mother expected her to do. Tsuna, breaking away from his babbling, waved at Kyoko enthusiastically and looked at Nadeshiko.

Nadeshiko took the cue and waved as well, prompting Kyoko to wave at them too, a gummy smile in place as she took out her pacifier from her mouth.

Soon, the two mothers began chatting amiably and Tsuna and Kyoko were having some odd competition to see who could babble more.

Nadeshiko just watched her brother contentedly, happy to let him and the girl get to know each other better while she immersed herself in her memories of another child, his dark blue hair shining in the sunlight and a laugh bubbling out and spilling onto the verdant trees and golden fields.

She watched her brother, and sometimes saw her honey-bear dunking his spoon into a bowl of soup and slurping it all up happily.

Other times, she remembered him hugging her as she came back from shopping, letting her know just how lonely he had been while she'd been gone, telling her silently that he loved her with everything he had.

She missed him so much, and she didn't know what to do about that.

Suddenly, a small blur smashed against her side of the pram and Nadeshiko screamed in terror.

When the pram stopped shaking and she finally opened her eyes, there bowing low to the ground, seemingly apologising very enthusiastically, was a light-haired toddler with a bandage on his left cheek.

Nadeshiko glared at him with all the ire she could muster, but when the boy just cooed at her and pinched her cheeks, Nadeshiko realised that The Glare™ wasn't working.

She pouted and the boy shoved his face even closer to her, and then started talking to his assumed mother.

The woman nodded, looking at her own mother for some confirmation, and when Nana nodded too, the boy sloppily kissed her on the cheek and patted her head.

Nadeshiko looked at him in abject horror.

This was the beginning of a _beautiful_ friendship.

Or so most people would tell her.

* * *

 _Well, what do you think? Good, bad, medium? I love how many people have guessed who her baby is, and have gotten it completely correct! But yeah, it's exam season, so that's why the chapters are a bit slow. It'll speed up after my exams though, I promise! Review please? It makes me want to stop procrastinating and write._


	6. The Learning Curve

**Something Simple**

 _"Guns don't kill people. Dads with pretty daughters kill people."_

* * *

Lucia Chrome had never been a 'daddy's girl'. In fact, she'd never been a 'mommy's girl' either, largely because her father had been a physically abusive drunk and her mother had been a verbally abusive bint.

Consequently, Nadeshiko almost didn't care one whit that her new parents had shortcomings, because really, when compared to what she had had before, an oblivious but loving mother and an absentee but adoring father were such a huge step up that she felt that it would be borderline blasphemy to complain.

In fact, Nadeshiko genuinely had nothing to complain about, and that was something…nice.

Odd, scary, _strange_ , but nice.

She would go so far as to say that she was very content with her new, slow, nice life.

She had a brother who loved her, a mother who loved her, a father who loved her, and…this weird munchkin that she was pretty sure liked her, if the slobbery kisses were any indication.

 _I know I attract boys like bees to honey, but by God, they have never been this young before!_ she thought exasperatedly, remembering one of the 'playdates' that she'd had to put up with a little over a week ago when the orange-haired girl, the light-haired boy and their mother had come to visit.

They'd come in through the door, led by a cheerful mama, just after Tsuna and Nadeshiko had had their bath. Nadeshiko's fluffy brown hair had been damp and her face had been pink from the hot water.

Tsuna's complexion had returned to normal faster than her, because for some godforsaken reason, the boy _liked_ the cold.

No, perhaps 'liked' was a strong word. It was more that he was utterly impervious to the cold, and Nadeshiko had given him one of her patented 'are you high?' looks when mama had finished rubbing his floofy hair and he'd giggled right out of the sliding glass doors into the back garden.

Of course, the only affect that look had had was mama squealing and taking a photo, presumably because the sarcastic tilt of her head hadn't had quite the desired effect.

The minute the light-haired boy had entered her living room and seen her blanket cocoon, he'd yelled something enthusiastic and dived for her.

She had given him a nasty look, but the effect had been ruined because her body had taken that moment to sneeze, and the boy, thinking that she'd had a cold, had snuggled closer to her and wrapped _her_ blankets around both of them.

Mama had taken yet another photo.

Nadeshiko had given her mama a _look_ , and taking the hint, she had tried to gently coax the boy out of _her_ personal space.

The boy, however, was a stubborn prick.

Nadeshiko had had to suffer for a good half hour, during which time the boy had yelled his gibberish into her ear, squeezed her cheeks at least nine times, kissed her forehead thrice (and what wet kisses they were), snuggled closer to her whenever she tried to increase the space between them, and managed to crumb-ify her soft yellow blanket when mama had brought some small sandwiches for the menace.

Nadeshiko had learned quite a while ago that if the food mama made had mashed potatoes, she wouldn't get any.

This made her pout, because she really did love potato.

Oh well.

Her mama could go ahead and be weird about mashed potatoes; her original mother had been more than happy to feed her absolutely nothing for days on end as 'punishment', and _anything_ was a step up from that.

By the time she'd been old enough to be able to understand what she was being punished for, she'd stopped caring.

For the duration of time Nadeshiko had been slowly losing her hearing, Tsuna and the orange-haired girl had been playing an interesting game of 'rolling around on the floor and seeing who could bang their head against the sofa most often'.

Tsuna had been winning by a landslide.

Of course, the game could have been 'avoid the sofa as you roll around the room', but Nadeshiko was sure that her brother wasn't _that_ uncoordinated.

In the end, after three hours of the energetic menace slowly but surely driving her insane, she had the pleasure of waving him goodbye as he and the female members of his family left.

Mama had had a fulfilled smile on her face, Tsuna had started crying in tandem with the orange-haired girl because they wanted to spend more time together, and Nadeshiko had grinned widely like a cat that had gotten the canary because _finally!_

 _But then_ , she thought, now that she had had time to digest the new…bond she had created, _why do I feel sad that I haven't seen him in a while? I mean, I don't even know his name!_

And wasn't that a problem? She had yet to understand what exactly the gibberish everyone around her was speaking meant, and she was beginning to feel hindered by this. Even Tsuna was verbalising the gibberish, and mama seemed to understand what he was saying as well.

 _I wish papa were here,_ she thought morosely. _Him, at least, I can understand._

Because papa spoke Italian, and papa was less _anally_ polite, and papa hadn't been home in _months_ and she _missed_ him.

She'd never thought she'd miss a parent, but papa wasn't like her old father.

This papa loved her and loved making her smile. That father just liked seeing her scream, and he'd never considered her worthy of even hate.

* * *

Sawada Nana hummed in happiness, washing the dishes, as Tsuna crawled towards her happily, his pudgy fingers hitting the floor with a soft thump-thump-thump, his sister wobbly-walking right beside him.

Nana had been slightly worried that her daughter, who hadn't even said her first words yet (all she did was speak gibberish, unfortunately, no matter how much Nana tried to teach her Japanese) was able to walk on her legs, while her son, who hadn't managed to crawl without bumping into things, was able to speak in full sentences _and_ interpret for his sister.

When her husband had called to tell her he'd be back sometime this week, she'd told him about the odd development. He'd been silent for a moment and then laughed, saying that all children developed at different rates, and 'of course my children would be unique, even though they look so similar!'

She'd been content about their development ever since, even though Komodo-san from next door had told her that, at seventeen months, if a baby couldn't talk _and_ walk, there was something mentally deficient about them.

Her husband knew better, after all.

Even if Komodo-san was well on her way to becoming a great-grandmother to the fifth great-grandchild that was on its way.

"Tsu-kun, Na-chan, would you like to go outside today?" she asked, drying up the last plate.

"Yay! Outside mama, _please_?" Tsuna squealed, his voice as light and bright as a soft chime in a breeze.

Nadeshiko looked at her in confusion and faced Tsuna for a quick translation.

He pointed at the window, grinned happily, and said, "Cheep cheep!", presumably imitating a bird.

Nana smiled at her son's adorableness, and smiled even wider when her daughter squeaked in terror and wobbly-ran away, screaming, " _Mai, mai, mai!_ "

Nana thought that Nadeshiko needed to toughen up – Namimori got colder in true winter, and she couldn't stay indoors forever.

Nana, of course, had no way of realising that just because Nadeshiko never spoke (to her knowledge), it didn't necessarily mean that she couldn't be heard.

And Nana was a true mama – she heard her babies loud and clear.

* * *

Sawada Iemitsu loved his family.

Sawada Iemitsu loved his famiglia.

Unfortunately, his famiglia required far more maintenance than his family, and so Italy was where he spent most of his time (except when his work took him elsewhere around the globe).

That did not mean he didn't miss his family, and the easy comfort of existing without the pressure of being professional, striking, intelligent or even remotely competent. Because his family wouldn't replace him 'for the greater good of CEDEF'.

That, in turn, did not mean that he didn't miss his famiglia when he was with his family, because with his famiglia he didn't have to hide his darker side, didn't have to listen to the insidious whispers of others, insulting his wife and the origins of his children, and not being able to shoot them in the head without thinking about the immediate consequences.

But he couldn't live without his family _and_ his famiglia, so this intermittent visitation of his family and his constant minor distraction when with his famiglia were the price he had to pay to have both.

As he burst through the door of his quaint Namimori residence, rattling the new picture frames his amazingly sweet wife must have put up in the three months he'd been away, Iemitsu could both feel the previous tension of _what's going to happen to my family if I'm not there and someone finds out about their existence?_ draining away and the new tension of _what could go wrong now that I'm not in Italy with my famiglia?_ setting in.

Iemitsu grinned, firmly shutting that tension in a mental metal box. He was home.

But he had the sense that maybe his family was asleep. The night had set in quite deeply, and Iemitsu was ready to sleep as well.

He slowly crept upstairs and peered into his wife's bedroom, noticing a lump moving with each light breath his sweet Nana took.

His brows smoothed out as he gazed lovingly at his wife, before slipping away and reaching his children's room.

Inside, he could make out the twin crib that held the two most precious things in his world, the moonlight just enough for him to make out the simple wooden frame.

" _Papa?"_ a voice called out, and Iemitsu's eyes widened. _La mia patatina was awake?_

"What are you doing awake so late?" he whispered, walking closer to the crib to see his daughter's eyes solemnly gazing at him, while his son was deep in sleep, his mouth open and leaking baby drool.

" _Papa, why is no one speaking Italian?"_ Nadeshiko asked, sitting up and moving closer to him.

Iemitsu blinked in surprise at her. _Nana said she couldn't speak at all, and now she's speaking fluently in Italian?_ _Maybe she picked that up from me…_

Iemitsu looked down at his daughter, a look of cute exasperation on her face. It struck him that maybe she didn't understand Japanese at all.

 _The Italian blood flows strong in this one_. he thought fondly, ruffling her fluffy hair with his massive hands.

" _La mia patatina, it's because this is Japan, and so everyone speaks Japanese."_ he said, enjoying the look of cute distaste and disbelief on her face.

" _But papa! Italy is better than this idiotic place! Why don't we live in Italy? Why do_ I _have to change for them?"_ she asked indignantly, her voice making Tsuna grumble in his sleep.

Iemitsu soothed his daughter's ruffled feathers with a few strokes of her hair. _"Na-chan, this is_ home _now. This doesn't mean you have to stop being Italian; it just means you become_ more _than just Italian, no?"_

Because _of course_ his daughter would have the same problem with identity as he did.

She bit her lower lip, scrunched up her tiny face, then puffed out her chubby cheeks and looked up at him with wide doe brown eyes.

She took a deep breath and said, _"Okay. Teach me Japanese papa."_

Iemtisu chuckled. _"In the morning. For now, go to sleep. Good night."_

She gripped his hand, the one that was closest to her.

" _Good night papa. I love you."_

Iemitsu felt the mental metal box stop rattling, no longer threatening to overwhelm him with tension and worry and pain.

" _I love you too patatina."_

He kissed the top of her head and tucked her back underneath the blanket that Tsuna was lying on top of.

He then slipped into the covers next to his wife, and he slept with a smile on his face, his dreams not plagued with screams and tears for the first time in years.

* * *

 _Extra long chapter in comparison, because you guys are amazing._

 _I should really be studying for my exams right now..._

 _And so Nadeshiko begins learning Japanese. Because no one wants to lose their identity, and her language is all she has left of who she had been, she had been adamantly denying the words being spoken to her, plus it's difficult to learn a second language when you know the first, even with a baby's ultra special brain capacity._

 _La mia patatina is my little potato, a term of endearment for his daughter. Mai means never, which is what Nadeshiko screams when they tell her to go outside._

 _Thoughts? What did you think about Ryohei and Kyoko? And Tsuna, Nana and Iemitsu? Are they all in character or too OOC? Please review and let me know?_


	7. The Soft Cheese

**Something Simple**

 _'Having someone to love is family. Having somewhere to go is home. Having both is a blessing.'_

* * *

Lucia was sitting at her table, staring at the bills with a blank face. She couldn't seem to stomach the fact that, yet again, she would have to skip another day's worth of meals just so that her baby could have _a little bit_ of food.

 _Why am I even doing this?_

She sighed, but as she heard the clatter of spoons and the stumble of feet from her kitchen, she turned around.

Standing in the doorway was her Honey Bear, blushing brightly in embarrassment and holding something behind his back.

" _What do you have there, mio orsetto?"_

He giggled softly and backed away from her as she came closer, giggling at her exaggerated pout.

" _You have to close your eyes first mama!"_

She happily obliged as her two year old son toddled towards her.

" _Put your hand out mama."_ he instructed gravely, and Lucia obliged with a half-smile.

" _Open!"_ he squealed, and Lucia did just that, and saw a poorly made meal on the disposable plate that she washed every day because they couldn't afford anything else with her meagre salary.

Soft cheese, basil pesto and sun-dried tomatoes on three crackers, with two olives placed carefully at the centre of the plate.

" _Did you make this yourself, Muku?"_ she asked, with the appropriate amount of surprise and sincerity. Inside, she could cry.

He nodded at her happily. _"Nonna Carina helped a little, but I wanted SURPRISE for mama! Happy mama day!"_

She placed the plate of food on the table and knelt down to pull him into a hug, his soft dark blue hair, so like his no-good father's, brushing against her cheek.

She swallowed back the lump in her throat, willing the tears not to leak, and promised herself that she would pay Carina a visit for her troubles. She raked a hand through her baby's hair, and breathed a happy sigh.

" _Thank you, mio orsetto,"_ she whispered softly, and his happy smile was enough for her to push back the hunger pangs she was still feeling from this month of rationing. As long as he wasn't hungry, she didn't mind suffering. Her Honey Bear _always_ came first.

" _Let's eat together, okay?"_

Together, the mother-son pair sat down on the low worn-out table, her son on his high stool and her on the slightly lopsided chair, and had the heartiest meal in the world.

Because if there's love, then even Kings' feasts pale in comparison.

* * *

Tsuna was relatively certain that it was raining, but he wondered why the rain was on his face when he was happily snuggled up in bed.

Blearily, he blinked his sleepy eyes and realised that his little sister was gnawing on his cheeks and slobbering all over him with her tiny mouth, muttering about something called _cheese_.

Tsuna might not have been the brightest crayon in the box, but he was pretty sure he wasn't _cheese_.

He pushed his little sister off him with as much strength as his baby limbs could muster, before giving up and staring at the ceiling in acceptance, because his little sister was _heavy_. She also, incidentally, seemed to have an infinite amount of drool.

Tsuna lay there for a while, letting the birds chirp out one or two songs, before he started slapping his little sister awake.

He'd once tried to gently wake her up like mama did for him, but then she'd rolled over on top of him, and he wasn't willing to allow a repeat performance; he had a healthy dislike for being squashed under twenty two pounds of squishy babyness.

"Imouto, wake up!" he squeaked in his most impressive mama impression to date, wondering if she would get up _this_ time.

It hadn't worked so far, but Tsuna was too young to realise that he really ought to just give up on this too, after the fortieth consecutive time it _didn't_ work.

Tsuna pondered this dilemma he seemed to be facing, and decided that the best courses of action available to him were to either cry and wait for mama to get imouto off him, or try to ask her to wake up in _her_ words.

Tsuna had been confused for a while, when he realised that imouto and mama spoke different words for the same thing, and it took him a while to figure out that papa spoke _both_. So, he decided he would be cool like papa and speak both too.

He didn't know the word for little sister, but he was pretty sure wake up went something like..." _Svegliati!"_

Yes, that sounded correct. He said it multiple times and punctuated it with slaps to her face, and finally, his little sister woke up.

" _You're not cheese…"_ she mumbled in sleepy confusion, before patting his head and stretching her short arms up into the air. " _It's okay though, you're still tasty_." she said as comfortingly as possible, as though Tsuna's feelings might be hurt.

Tsuna just decided to roll with it; this was completely normal.

Nadeshiko jiggled the crib in an unknown pattern so that they could escape and head to the kitchen (Tsuna was unaware of the intricacies entailed, but the results were most fortuitous, so he didn't complain).

However, on their way to the kitchen, where Tsuna could smell mama making something yummy, they were stopped by a strange-looking man with yellow hair.

Tsuna yelped in surprise, but imouto just ran to the man and barrelled into his shin for a hug. _"Papa!"_

Tsuna registered the word and squealed in excitement, his wide eyes shining just as brightly as Nadeshiko's.

Papa wasn't home very often, and Tsuna didn't really remember papa, save for a few vague impressions of 'warm' and 'safe'. That, he decided, was more than enough to love him just as much as mama.

"Papa!" he exclaimed, barrelling into his papa's other shin. Iemitsu chuckled happily, easily lifting both his fluffy bundles of joy onto his shoulders and heading for the bathroom so they could all brush their teeth and wash their faces.

"You two are up early." he said with a grin, blowing a raspberry into Tsuna's tummy. Tsuna giggled and kissed his papa's rough cheek.

"Imouto drools." he informed him solemnly, as though discussing the evacuation plan for a dinosaur invasion.

"Ah, I see." Iemitsu replied, equally as solemn.

The two men of the house shared a look of deep understanding, and Nadeshiko pouted in adorable annoyance.

" _Papa, what are you saying?"_ she asked in her fluffy voice, and Iemitsu chuckled again.

" _You're up early."_ he repeated, and she blinked.

" _How do you…say that in Japanese?"_ she asked, a look of stark determination in her eyes.

Iemitsu's eyes flashed with pride, before he placed both his children down on the countertop next to the sink.

" _Let's wash our hands first, alright? Then we'll begin our lessons."_ he said, ruffling his daughter's hair affectionately.

He repeated his instructions to Tsuna, and the twins dutifully washed their hands under Iemitsu's watch, successfully making their clothes dripping wet.

He shook his head in fondness and laughed, before taking their clothes off and putting them in the bath, with a _"should have just done this from the start!"_

His daughter's attempted deadpan made him laugh even harder.

The twins were washed, dried off and dressed for the day before all three of them headed downstairs, where Nana had prepared a meal fit for kings.

Nadeshiko, remembering the dream-memory, looked at all the food with clouded eyes.

 _I shouldn't be here…_

But then Tsuna accidentally head-butted her in the chin, and all sad thoughts disappeared completely, to be replaced by retaliatory slaps, incomprehensible gibberish from all parties involved, and uncontrollable laughing from the older counterparts.

Tsuna and Nadeshiko gave their parents identical pouts of exasperation.

It, as ought to be obvious by this point, wasn't very effective.

* * *

" _Alright. We'll begin with the basics."_ began Iemitsu, his daughter staring at him with wide brown eyes, a piece of paper in front of her to take notes.

They were in the living room, the sun shining from behind wisps of white clouds, the March air wafting through the open window.

" _What's your name?"_ he asked, and then repeated the phrase in Japanese.

Nadeshiko furrowed her eyebrows and her cheeks flushed in concentration as she tried to mimic the way papa had said the seemingly random string of syllables.

When she finally got it close to correct, he said, " _My name is Sawada Iemitsu_."

She squinted at the Japanese version of the sentence, and tried repeating it, but said "Na-chan" instead of his name.

He chuckled at her, and they continued in this vein for a while, him saying words and her trying to repeat them.

The next day, he would ask her to repeat the phrases she'd learned the previous day, and they would both discover that her memory retention was, to put it lightly, atrocious.

Iemitsu would simply laugh, what with the patience he had for his daughter being infinite and everything, and repeat the entire process all over again, this time writing both the Italian words and the Japanese hiragana for what he was saying.

Nadeshiko would take these to her room, and while Tsuna fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, she would peer at the words, trying to learn, to _ingrain_ the words, because this was, as papa put it, _home_ now, and she wouldn't be a failure, a disappoint, again.

Not this time around.

* * *

Nana brought out a camera and started taking pictures of her daughter's constipated expression as she tried to follow her papa's rapid Italian _and_ Japanese, trying very hard to keep up and not forget what he was talking about.

Unfortunately, with being a child came the attention span of a goldfish, and Nana giggled as her daughter kept getting distracted by the butterflies outside.

She took another picture of Nadeshiko's startled expression as her attention snapped back to her papa, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

"So cute…" she breathed with a smile, watching her husband and her daughter sitting side by side, Na-chan's face peering at her papa's face with an almost hilarious level of focus, and her papa occasionally ruffling her hair to stop her mind wandering away.

Slowly, Nana thought excitedly, my little girl will be able to talk to me! And then we'll be able to go shopping together, and cook together, and do the laundry together…I can't wait!

She turned away from Nadeshiko and Iemitsu then, and went to the yard with her laundry basket. Tsu-kun was playing with a toy action figure her husband had brought from his business trip to Hawaii. Of course, the packaging had Italian instructions on it, but she was sure that her husband wouldn't lie about something as silly as where he went to work.

Maybe he'd bought the action figure at the airport, and felt too embarrassed to tell anyone?

Her husband was adorably awkward that way.

"Tsu-kun, don't wander away too far, ne?" she called as Tsuna disappeared among the hedges, his battle cries fading further away as his imaginary superhero plot progressed.

"Okay mama!" her son called out.

Nana was, she decided as she hummed a soft tune while hanging the bedsheets to dry, a very happy woman.

Everything was right with the world.

* * *

By the time papa had to leave for Italy again, Nadeshiko was be able to convey her words to Nana, even though she didn't understand a word mama said back to her, which made for all sorts of awkward situations.

By the time papa had to leave for Italy, Tsuna and pretty Kyoko-chan had landed themselves in the hospital twice because of Tsuna's clumsiness, and Ryohei had decided that Nadeshiko was going to be his wingman when they grew up, _whatever that means._

By the time papa had to leave for Italy, Nana would have enough pictures to fill three different boxes, and she would spend many a lonely hours looking through them and _aching inside_ for happier days.

By the time papa had to leave for Italy, the Sawada household wouldn't know what to do without him.

But they would learn, just as they always did, because papa was never home for very long.

And that was alright, thought Tsuna. After all, papa always came back, ne?

* * *

 _Nonna means grandmother, but she's not his actual grandmother, obviously, just a neighbour that looks after him when Lucia went out to work. Svegliati means wake up, but that was kind of in the text. What do you think of this chapter? I'm sorry for the delay in updates—I had exams. But I'm all done now, so we should be back to_ very _regular updates soon!_


	8. The Crying Festival

**Something Simple**

' _Friends come and go, like the waves of the ocean, but true friends stay, like an octopus stuck to your face.'_

* * *

Today was a very auspicious day, in Sawada Tsunayoshi's solemn opinion.

After all, on this cool and bright August day, Tsuna was going to see Kyoko-chan in a kimono for the _first_ time. He was ostensibly very excited.

His little sister did not share his opinion.

She was, as was usual with her, pouting at her reflection in a decidedly adorable fashion, and it made Tsuna quite unable to reprimand her for anything, up to and including drooling all over the action figure papa had got him from Hawaii. She didn't seem to understand what a heinous crime she'd committed, and Tsuna didn't have the heart to make her cry, so he just mumbled a little, sent an intermittent pout in her direction, and kicked himself for not having the guts to yell at her.

Luckily though, Nadeshiko seemed to consider the pale pink kimono she was wearing an affront against sin itself, and Tsuna figured that, since _he'd_ been the one to ask to go celebrate the Tanabata festival with the Sasagawa family, he'd gotten his revenge in a roundabout way.

"Imouto, 're you done with the mirro'?" he asked, wondering whether she would say yes this time.

She frowned and moved her head from side-to-side, her pout becoming more pronounced every time she saw the tiny bun her hair had been neatly folded into.

" _I hate this…it doesn't suit me at all!"_ she exclaimed, ready to yank the pins holding her hair in place.

Tsuna managed to stop her just in the nick of time. "I think it looks cute. Mama worked hard to make you look cute."

Nadeshiko's pout softened. " _She did work hard, didn't she?_ If I have to…just this once, I'll let this slide."

Tsuna grinned at her, before giving himself a once over in the mirror. The sleeves might make him trip over because of their length, but the navy blue hakama was dark enough that if he spilt something on it, it wouldn't be too noticeable. Even at his age, he knew that it was these things, rather than whether something was aesthetically pleasing or not, that mattered when it came to his clothing.

He took her tiny hand in his equally tiny hand, gave the mirror a peace sign, and tugged his little sister towards the door.

Nadeshiko shuffled behind him, and even though she was wearing new wooden sandals, there was an inherent grace in how she walked, something that Tsuna would never have.

But Tsuna had learned early on in his life-long career as an older brother that if you hold your little sister's hand, you're ten times less likely to trip over your own feet—Nadeshiko was good at keeping a firm hold of him _and_ solid ground at the same time.

Bless her multi-tasking abilities.

Mama was standing in the driveway, two braids weaved into her short brown hair and a light green elaborate kimono rustling in the wind.

"My, don't you two look adorable!" she exclaimed happily as she saw them coming out the front door, Tsuna carefully taking the two porch steps as carefully as humanly possible. "Let's take a picture for papa, ne?"

She took out her new camera (it had come in the mail with a note from her husband instructing her to take lots of photos, and Nana had been so happy with the gift, she hadn't even realised that she'd had to rely on her daughter to translate the instructions manual) and beckoned her two toddlers to her.

"Na-chan," tutted Nana gently, "you need to smile! Come on, we're sending this picture to papa!"

Nadeshiko gave her a blink of incomprehension, and then both of them looked at Tsuna, who startled at the attention and tripped on his sleeves.

"Ow…" he moaned exasperatedly, wishing he wasn't so clumsy as his sister and mother winced in sympathy.

He pushed himself up, Nana dusting him off and Nadeshiko patting his hair, and then she pointed at mama.

Tsuna explained what mama had said, and Nadeshiko replied, "Oh, alright then."

And so, Nana knelt on the driveway, careful not to wrinkle her kimono, asked the just-arrived Sasagawa mother to take a photo of them, and held both her adorable children against her on either side.

Nadeshiko gave the camera a serene smile, Tsuna blushed and grinned, and Nana looked bright and chirpy.

"Thank you, Kaoru-san! How about the children take a picture as well, all together?" suggested Nana.

Nadeshiko looked confused, and Tsuna explained in Italian with a sly grin on his face.

Nadeshiko paled. _"We're going to the festival with the Sasagawa family!?"_

Barely had the words left her mouth before a blur of white hair and bandages slammed into her with the force of a raging bull.

"NADE! LET'S HAVE LOTS OF FUN!"

Nadeshiko didn't ever need translation for Ryohei—his vocabulary was limited, and he spoke slowly enough for even her beginner brain to understand.

That didn't mean she liked him though.

"Let's not." she deadpanned, but Ryohei seemed not to have heard her.

"Hello Tsu-kun, Na-chan." blushed a pretty Kyoko, her own pale pink kimono an exact copy of Nadeshiko's.

Apparently, Mama Nana and Kaoru had both decided to go shopping together. They were very close.

Tsuna had a look of utter bliss on his face, and his blush intensified. "Hello Kyoko-chan!"

Nadeshiko bowed with a smile, and Ryohei found that extremely charming, so he bowed and yelled out a, "HELLO KYOKO!" of his own, although what the purpose of this was was anyone's guess.

Nadeshiko was leaning towards the 'this boy is retarded' hypothesis.

Kyoko started, and then bowed back to the both of them, as though having met Ryohei for the first time today.

Tsuna smacked a palm against his forehead in exasperated fondness, before taking Nadeshiko's hand in his, prompting Ryohei to take Kyoko's hand in his, and then said, "Mama, let's go!"

Nadeshiko thought her elder brother was adorable, but she was going to keep that to herself, until they became teenagers so that it would embarrass him more.

She was evil like that.

They walked at a sedate-ish pace (ish because Ryohei was _never_ sedate, nor did he allow anything _to be_ sedate), passing by Komodo-san from next door, the Nakamura family from three doors down, and Heiji, the park bully, although they didn't know this at the time, what with them having never been to the park before, largely due to Nadeshiko's unwillingness to leave the house to socialise until she could actually interact with the other little humans.

"Ma, Na-chan, Tsu-kun, do you know why the Tanabata festival is celebrated?" asked Kaoru, breaking the pleasant silence (barring Ryohei, who was eating Nadeshiko's ears off with his jabbering about the camping trip his father had taken him on).

She'd talked especially slowly so that Nadeshiko could understand as well, but not too slow so that she seemed condescending—Kaoru-ba-san was nice like that.

Tsuna answered for both of them. "No. Can you tell us please?" he asked with eager eyes.

Nadeshiko looked intrigued, a faraway look in her eyes.

Ryohei slammed against a streetlamp, and she came back to the present with an almost audible snap to give him an exasperated look.

Nana sweatdropped. "Maybe you should change walking partners, ne Ryohei-chan?"

After all, it must have been very difficult to walk ahead of Nadeshiko and be talking _to_ Nadeshiko. Tsuna gave Nana a panicked look—he didn't _want_ to make Kyoko-chan end up in the hospital again! And, now that he was on the train of thought, he didn't want to end up in the hospital again himself, but that's exactly what was going to happen if he didn't hold Nadeshiko's hand.

Mama seemed not to notice her son's silent plea for amnesty.

She was match-making, after all, and it wouldn't do to let half-hearted wimpiness get in the way.

Nadeshiko, for her part, just looked ridiculously resigned, and disallowed Ryohei from holding her hand. Ryohei, being as dense as osmium, didn't seem to notice the attempted rejection, and beamed at her very brightly, having never even offered to take her hand.

Sasagawa Kaoru giggled into her hand at the half-smile Nadeshiko tried to suppress in vain in reply to Ryohei's happiness, before clearing her throat.

"Near the milky way, in the night sky, is the home of the Gods, where the daughter of the God of the Heavens lived. Her name was Orihime." began Kaoru-ba-san.

"Orihime weaved kimono for the Gods, and she worked so hard that God worried for her health. So, he introduced her to the cow-herder, Hikoboshi, who lived on the other side of the river and worked all the time too, just like Orihime. When the two met, they fell madly in love, and spent all their time together."

Nadeshiko and Tsuna looked up at her with earnest eyes, neither having heard the story before. Nana discreetly took another photo, as all four children slowed down their pace, and even Ryohei stayed quiet, listening to a story he'd already heard before.

Kaoru cleared her throat again. "But, because they spent all their time together, Orihime didn't weave kimono for the Gods, and all their kimonos became worn out, and Hikoboshi spent all his time away from the cows, and all of the cows got very sick. God became very angry at their neglectful behaviour."

She paused for dramatic effect, the children having stopped walking, Tsuna's eyes already brimming with tears at the anticipated fallout of such disregard for others.

"God separated the two lovers, sending Hikoboshi back to the other side of the river, and ordered them to never see each other again. But, because the two loved each other so much, they couldn't concentrate on their work. Their work suffered, and the Gods still didn't have any pretty kimonos and the cows were still sick, and both Hikoboshi and Orihime were very sad. The God of the Heavens felt sorry for them, and so he promised Orihime that she could meet Hikoboshi once every year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, if they both worked hard the rest of the year."

They'd reached the Namimori market, where everything was decorated with paper lanterns, origami flowers were strung up all over the buildings, several game stalls were set up, and everyone was laughing and eating things from the food stalls.

Nadeshiko tugged on Kaoru-ba-san's kimono. "How does the story end?"

Kaoru's eyes softened at the flushed face of the girl who barely ever talked, and touched her cheek.

"We celebrate Tanabata every year, and pray that it doesn't rain, so the river doesn't overflow and Orihime can get to the other side of the Milky Way to meet Hikoboshi, where they spend the entire day together in happiness."

Nadeshiko frowned. "That's it? Only one day?"

Kaoru smiled at Nadeshiko's distress. "When you want to meet someone very badly, if you try hard enough, one day can seem like forever."

Nadeshiko and Tsuna both started crying, and watching them cry made Kyoko cry, which made Ryohei feel left out, so he started crying too.

"B-but that's…no' fair!" cried Tsuna. "One day is too short!"

Nana took another picture, before bending down to her son's level. "Ne, it's like with papa! It's sad when he isn't home, but it can't be helped because he has to work, right? So we wait, and we're happy when he comes back, ne?"

Tsuna sniffled and nodded, tears still pouring down his face. Nadeshiko was still crying, either not understanding everything mama was saying, or too wrapped up in crying to really bother trying to translate.

"That's how it was with Orihime and Hikoboshi." said Nana calmly, a beatific smile on her face. "They both get sad, but work extra hard, just to see each other again. And when they're apart, their love only grows more and more. It is a sad story, and that's why we pray. So that, at least for one day, Orihime and Hikoboshi can be together."

Tsuna stared at his mama with wide, watery brown eyes. "Don't be sad mama! I'll pray lots and lots, for 'rihime and Hik'boshi, _and_ mama and papa!"

He looked at her with unconditional love and determination, and Nana hugged him with a giggle. "Ma, my little Tsu-kun is growing up so fast!"

Kaoru had managed to calm Ryohei down, and when Tsuna stopped, Kyoko had also stopped crying. But Nadeshiko still continued to cry, inconsolable as she was.

Nana released her son and went to her daughter, touching her flushed cheek and motioning for Kaoru to take the other three to enjoy the festival.

When they'd left (the children very reluctantly because they didn't want to leave Nadeshiko behind), Nana said slowly, "Na-chan, why are you crying so much?"

Nadeshiko understood what her mama was asking her, but all she could see was her baby waiting in a dark room, waiting for her to come find him and come take him home. And she didn't _have_ that one day to see him…she might _never_ see him again, and she was _sad_.

And when you were sad, you cried.

It was as simple as that.

Mama didn't pry, mama didn't force her to stop, mama didn't mutter promises to her or bribe her with sweets to get her to stop.

Mama just hugged her daughter, and gave her all the love she'd never had, and in a little while, the sadness would be overpowered by the happiness again, and Nadeshiko would make a wish and tie it to the bamboo tree near the shrine.

And on it, in Italian, was written the deepest, sincerest wish of her heart.

" _Please, let me see my baby someday. Let us be a family again."_

And tied right next to her dream was her brother's dream, in clumsy kanji and hiragana (mama had helped him with that).

" _Please give Orihime and Hikoboshi more than one day together. Please let papa be home all the time."_

Kyoko, in her shaky handwriting, had written earnestly, _"Please let me be Tsu-kun's bride when I grow up."_

Ryohei, in his infinite wisdom, had written, in his most careful kanji, _"I want steak for dinner."_

* * *

It was the 10th of August, and Sawada Iemitsu was filling out the latest report, his eyes itching for some sleep and his throat hoarse from the meeting he'd just been in.

Someone knocked on the door, and then left an envelope on his desk.

He finished his report two hours later, and thought about getting a cup of coffee before tackling the mission reports he'd gotten from Lal.

He stretched his arms and stood up, and then his eyes landed on the envelope because of its sheer out-of-placeness.

" _To Sawada Iemitsu  
Italy_ _"_

It was the vaguest address _ever_ , but he instantly knew exactly who it was from, and he was pretty sure the guard detail he'd left with his family had too.

He carefully unsealed the envelope, and out fell a letter and three pictures.

He put the letter aside carefully, and sat down with the three pictures in his hands, trying to stop them from trembling in longing.

In one picture, his beautiful wife smiled at him, with his twins on either side of her, Tsuna looking adorably shy and Nade looking incredibly serene for a toddler.

He stared at their expressions for what felt like hours, and then looked at the next picture and bit back a smile at the red, puffy eyes of his children and the Sasagawa children, all of them crying while listening to Sasagawa Kaoru speak.

His babies looked so sad that Iemitsu felt like going into the picture and hugging the life out of them, the longing getting worse when he read the back of the photo, where Nana had written in her neat handwriting, ' _Our children listening to the story of Orihime and Hikoboshi.'_

Iemitsu sighed in fondness. _Such wimps, my children…_

The third picture made him almost book a flight to Namimori immediately, even though he'd been there only a month ago.

Nadeshiko and Tsuna were both lying on their parents' bed, still wearing their kimono and hakama, holding hands and smiling softly, their cheeks flushed from their day out, and hair fluffled by the wind.

Three hours passed before he had the strength to read the letter.

Iemitsu took the day off.

* * *

 _Tanabata is usually celebrated on July the 7_ _th_ _, but in many places, it's celebrated on the 7_ _th_ _of August. In Namimori, it's celebrated in August, okay?_

 _What do you think of Nadeshiko and Ryohei's relationship? And Nana and Iemitsu? Orihime and Hikoboshi? What do you think of Sasagawa Kaoru? Bit by bit, Nadeshiko's getting better at Japanese, but of course, it isn't going to be that fast. What do you think of Tsuna and Nadeshiko's relationship? Review please!_


	9. The Whacking Stick

**Something Simple**

 _'Have you ever had one of those days where you're holding a stick and everyone looks like a piñata?'_

* * *

 **WARNING: Mentions of child abuse.**

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi and Nadeshiko had finally reached the age of two years and six months, and not a day had passed by that didn't feel like any other.

Today, the twins were going to the neighbourhood park for the first time along with their two closest friends, nearly four years old Sasagawa Ryohei and his little sister Kyoko.

Tsuna was very excited and a bit nervous, while Nadeshiko was very nervous and a bit excited.

The weather was sunny, the birds were chirping, and Nadeshiko was holding Tsuna's hand in a death grip. She didn't know why she was so unaccountably nervous - she thought it might have had to with her barely coherent Japanese speaking skills, but she was in denial about her very noticeable accent so no one was going to mention it.

"Kyoko! That's a dog! Look at how cute it is!" yelled an enthusiastic Ryohei, waving the hand that wasn't holding onto Kyoko's at a little Chihuahua on the other side of the street.

Kyoko giggled and cooed at the dog, and Tsuna looked at the little thing with curiosity as it licked Kyoko's face. Nadeshiko, being more of a cat person, continued walking in the direction they'd been instructed the park was in, tugging Tsuna along with her.

"Nade, I wan' to see the dog." he pouted cutely, and Nadeshiko gave him a deadpan.

" _You'll see plenty of dogs in your life Tsuna."_

Tsuna huffed but let her lead him straight onwards, reaching the neighbourhood park with the brightly coloured swing set, slides, sandbox and seesaw. There were tiny children and some teenagers playing together or just sitting around, giggling, laughing and arguing good-naturedly. Eventually, Ryohei and Kyoko caught up with them, Ryohei half-dragging Kyoko with his enthusiastic sprinting, and promptly started waving at them.

"NADE, TSUNA! Look! The dog bit me!" he exclaimed with a grin, proudly shoving his bleeding hand into Nadeshiko's face, unconcerned by the steady reddening of the ground underneath him.

Tsuna flipped out. "Ryo-nii, you're bleeding! We ha' to go to the hospital!" he panicked, looking left and right, as if expecting too see a signboard showing him the way to the hospital.

Kyoko was sniffling in distress, while Ryohei just kept saying, "This bite mark is the mark of a MAN!"

Nadeshiko sighed at the boy's stupidity and put a hand on Tsuna's head to stop his head from moving. "Tsuna, it's shallow. We wash it, it'll be fine."

Tsuna gave her a disbelieving stare, before saying, "Hurry!"

She nodded and motioned for Ryohei to follow her to the water fountain, but the boy was being stubborn for some reason.

She turned to him and tilted her head in exasperation, but he shook his head with a previously unseen solemnity. "This is proof I'm a man Nade! I won't wash it off! The blood will seep into my skin, and it will mark my manhood forever!"

Nadeshiko looked at him up and down for a good three seconds, sizing him up, before going over to one of the older kids and tugging on his trousers.

"Onii-san, my friend is bleeding. Wash please?" she asked, in her cutest, airiest voice.

The middle schooler blushed at her cuteness and looked to where she had come from. "Sure thing, little girl."

Ryohei gave her a look of deep betrayal, and she sneered at him disdainfully. "You're being an idiot Ryohei. _Which means you're well on your way to becoming a man, come to that."_

Tsuna giggled at her dry tone, having calmed down now that older people were taking care of the problem.

Ryohei began kicking and screaming his way away from the middle schooler, who looked annoyed at the flailing kid. "Hold still! It's not _that_ painful!" he said, misinterpreting the reason for all the squirming.

"DON'T TAKE MY MANHOOD FROM ME!" he screamed, prompting several kids playing around them to look up at who was causing the commotion.

The middle schooler looked mortified, and blushed really brightly. "Sh-shut up brat! I'm just washing up the blood!" he said, looking at his friends pleadingly, who were sitting on the grass and laughing raucously at his predicament. _Traitors!_ he though bitterly, gritting his teeth as he decided, you know what? If the brat wasn't going to go to the water fountain, he would bring the _water fountain_ to the kid.

He cupped the water and sprayed the light-haired brat with a mad glee in his expression. Nadeshiko watched all of this with an evil giggle, enjoying Ryohei's screams a tad more than was healthy.

"NO! NOT MY PRECIOUS MANHOOD! YOU MONSTER!" he screamed, attempting to punch the older boy without much success.

Nadeshiko figured it was getting out of hand, and so she looked around for something to solve the problem, noticing with a fond exasperation that Tsuna and Kyoko had completely tuned out the drama surrounding Ryohei and were happily playing together in the sandbox.

She soon espied a sturdy looking piece of wood that looked like it would make a very nice whacker, so she toddled over to it with an unnatural amount of grace. She picked up the stick daintily, gripping it comfortably before walking back to the middle schooler who looked unendurably humiliated—it seemed that Ryohei had actually managed to land a bruising punch on the guy, and his friends were madly laughing at his 'wimpiness'.

Nadeshiko whistled, getting both boys' attentions. "Thank you for your help Onii-san!" she chirped happily, before sending an ineffective sharp glance at Ryohei. "Say thank you Ryohei."

He glared back at her with far more effectivity. "NEVER!"

She had realised some time ago that glaring just didn't seem to work, not with her nonthreatening face (which hadn't been a problem in her previous life, thank you very much!), so she smiled at him widely, a mad glint in her overly sweet expression.

"That's not nice Ryohei. Punishment time~!" she sang in a lilting voice, before slowly singing incy-wincy spider in Italian, gracefully toddling towards Ryohei, swinging her stick playfully by her side.

The middle schooler gulped. "Wah! Sadako*!" he screamed before running to his friends, who were looking at the show eagerly. Nadeshiko paid them no mind, the sweat pouring dramatically down Ryohei's forehead as he giggled nervously captivating her mildly sadistic tendencies completely.

"Ryo-chan~! Say thank you!" she said sweetly, lifting the stick above her head.

"N-no! I'm a strong man!" he exclaimed, standing his ground.

 _This should be fun…_ Nadeshiko mentally giggled.

"Suit yourself, Ryo-chan~!" she sang, before whacking him over the head with the stick.

"Ouch!"

But he didn't back away. Nadeshiko whacked him again, and he exclaimed again, and then he began backing away.

But Nadeshiko was having fun, and besides, there were _hours_ of payback for all his stupidity that she needed to extract from him—and there were no adults watching. This was _perfect_.

She started chasing him with the stick, and Ryohei ran away from her screaming, "Nade! You could trip if you run with that stick! Don't hit the Ichikura's youngest son! Nade! That was my face! Nade, your hits are getting better! Nade!"

Nadeshiko was full-out laughing, chasing Ryohei while threateningly waving her stick, encouraged by the cheers of the middle schoolers.

Soon enough, it stopped being about getting Ryohei to say thank you, and more to do with having fun. Both the children were laughing by the time they ran out of energy, and Ryohei gasped for air as Nadeshiko unceremoniously flopped onto the ground, still laughing breathlessly.

"That was fun!" she said, smiling widely.

Ryohei laughed too, flopping down next to her. "Yeah! Let's do that again next time!"

A few breaths later, one of the spectator middle schoolers came over to them with a wide grin on his face. "That was some game you two were playing! Very entertaining! Here, our treat!" he said, giving them both a grape-flavoured candy.

They both accepted it with a chirpy thank you, and the middle schooler ruffled Ryohei's hair before going back to his friends, who were leaving the park, with his hands in his pockets.

"Ah, oujo-chan?" he said, stopping and turning slightly. "You're pretty good with that stick. Might want to try learning kendo!"

As he walked away, Ryohei punched the air and exclaimed, "Yeah, you totally should Nade! Then I could fight with my fists to protect Kyoko, and you can fight with your stick to protect Tsuna!"

She looked at her grape-flavoured candy in confusion. "What's kendo?"

Ryohei grinned before getting up and walking over to their siblings. "Here you go Kyoko! Candy from your big brother!"

Kyoko smiled at him sweetly. "Thank you onii-chan!"

Nadeshiko looked at Tsuna's sand-covered hands and wrinkled her nose in fond disgust. She unwrapped the candy before looking at Tsuna and saying, "Aaah."

Tsuna copied her open-mouthed motion without thinking about it and she popped the candy into his mouth.

"Yummy." she informed by way of explanation, and Tsuna just rolled with it, smiling at her brightly with a shy blush on his face.

Nadeshiko melted a little on the inside.

"Kendo is fighting! You beat people up with sticks, and it's really cool, but not as cool as boxing!" Ryohei informed her dutifully, fists pumped in the air with an embarrassing level of excitement.

Nadeshiko's eyes sparkled in interest. "Fighting with sticks? Where can I learn?"

Ryohei put a finger on his bottom lip in thought, before shrugging in reply. "No idea!" he exclaimed with a thumbs up, and Tsuna and Kyoko looked back and forth between the two.

Tsuna decided he needed to put his foot down before things got out of hand. "Nade, no." he said as seriously as he could. Just like with Nadeshiko's evil glares, it was about as effective as a baby panda was frightening.

"Tsuna, yes." she said with a suppressed grin, her eyes twinkling.

Tsuna let out a distressed whine. "But Nade, beating people up is mean!"

Nadeshiko gave him a sharp grin. "But Tsuna, letting people beat you up is _stupid._ "

Tsuna must have recognised something desolate in her voice, because he sighed and nodded in acceptance of her decision to learn how to whack people with sticks for fun.

Nadeshiko, meanwhile, was reeling with memories of her father breaking plates over her head and screaming at her, shoving her out the door and slamming the door on her fingers.

Flashes of when she was five and he'd kicked her in the leg without so much as another thought because she was in the way of him reaching the fridge, when she was eight and he'd punched her in the stomach when she came home with a cut on her face because 'no one wants damaged goods for a good fuck!', when she was twelve and he'd thrown the first present she'd ever gotten from _anyone_ at her feet and made her bleed from the shattered glass, when she was fourteen and he'd yanked her by her hair and smashed her face repeatedly against the door because she hadn't been a good enough sex toy for one of his 'clients', when she was eighteen and she'd told him she was pregnant and planned on keeping the child…

 _I'm not going to sit back and_ let _people beat me up, not this time._ she promised herself firmly, the fire within her burning brighter.

"There's a Kendo dojo on Toshi street." said a quiet voice behind her, and Nadeshiko turned around, startled.

A boy with jet black hair about Ryohei's age stood there, watching them with an almost disdainful look on his face, before turning away sharply.

"One less herbivore can only be a good thing." Those were his parting words, and Nadeshiko tilted her head in confusion.

Tsuna looked at her and shrugged. Clearly, they'd have to go home and ask mama what 'herbivore' meant.

Till then…"Toshi street…Ryo-nii, can we find out from Kaoru-ba-san where that is? Kyoko-chan, you and I will convince mama to let imouto learn kendo, because imouto isn't so good with words." said Tsuna, naturally taking on the leadership role.

Ryohei nodded with enthusiasm, and Kyoko and Tsuna began discussing the points they'd use to convince Nana to let Nadeshiko practice kendo.

Nadeshiko just watched them for a few moments, filling her heart with the unspoken love exuding from their concentrated faces, from Ryohei's enthusiasm at helping her, from Tsuna's willingness to back her up even when he didn't agree with violence on principle, from Kyoko's gentle lack of judgement as to why she wanted to whack people with sticks for fun.

Lucia Chrome had never known love like this.

Lucia was loving Japan more and more and more.

Everyday.

* * *

 _Sadako Yamamura is the name of the girl from the horror movie trilogy, Ring._

 _Okay, people are worried that this is a RyoheiXNade story. Sorry to disappoint anyone, but it definitely isn't. They're just friends. Always will be JUST FRIENDS._

 _I actually have a pairing in mind, and it won't happen till she's in middle school. That, I can guarantee._

 _Also, a guest reviewer pointed out that there is a lot of low-key racism in this story. I'm sorry…? I mean, I don't think Nadeshiko is intentionally racist, she just has a very limited exposure to the Asian culture, and I was keeping her in-character. I mean, I have_ nothing _against either Italians or the Japanese, and I'm not trying to stereotype. It's just the way Nadeshiko thinks, but it won't be the way she always thinks. I mean, she was patriotic to begin with, and loved her Italia, and now she has to accept being Japanese, a culture which she was only exposed to through her ex-boyfriend that killed her. It's actually unrealistic that I haven't made her_ hate _Japan actually…but she will learn to love Namimori, and she'll love it a lot, I promise. The low-key racism is a part of everyone, and I didn't even notice until you pointed it out…sorry!_

 _So what did you guys think of this chapter? Good, bad, medium, puke-worthy? Yes, that was Hibari. No, it isn't going to be a HibariXNade story either. Point out any mistakes to me please!_


	10. The Toddling Brother

**Something Simple**

 _'Dear unborn baby,  
I plan to give you love, nurturing, and just enough dysfunction to make you funny.  
Love, mummy.'_

* * *

Sawada Nana stared at her son with more of a blank expression than usual, clearly not able to process just what had been requested of her.

"Maa, mama doesn't think she understood what Tsu-kun was trying to tell her. Could you say it again for mama?" she asked, thinking that maybe she'd just misheard what he was saying.

Tsuna took a deep breath and, with a scrunched up look of conflicted, adorable concentration, carefully repeated what Kyoko and him had practised for an entire half hour at the park today. "Mama, Nade i' a girl, but Nade wantsa be strong. She wantsa a learn kendo, and Tsu-kun thinks mama should let her."

He remembered all the excellent points Kyoko and him had planned out, and it looked like he would need every single bit of advice he'd gotten, if his mama's frown was anything to go by.

"But…Tsu-kun, fighting is for boys. Why doesn't Na-chan learn something more feminine, like sewing?" she tried reasoning, but Tsuna wasn't going to back down.

There were very few reasons in his short life for him to be strong, but when it came to his little sister and the almost empty look in her eyes, Tsuna knew that even though it went against everything his nearly three year old mind believed in, he would just have to accept it and let her fight.

After all, papa and mama had both told him that big brothers protected their little sisters, and he was protecting her, wasn't he? He was protecting her from people not letting her be herself, and isn't that what Tsuna was supposed to be protecting? His _sorella_ was stronger than him, but his _sorella_ needed him now, and he was going to be the best big brother he could possibly be.

Even if he didn't like mama looking so lost and worried. Even if he didn't like the idea of hurting other people. Even if he didn't really like the fact that Nadeshiko had it in her head that she needed to protect _him_.

Even if.

He shook his head as firmly as his constipated expression would allow. "No mama, Tsu-kun told you, Nade doesn't wanta sew, she wantsa learn kendo. Nade should do what Nade wantsa, ne?" he said, trying to get mama to see his point of view.

Nana didn't know what was going on. Why did her daughter, _not even three years old yet_ , want to learn how to fight? That was just…odd, right? But then, everything in Nana's life was sort of odd anyway, and if this is what Na-chan wanted…

Nana just wished her daughter wanted to do more feminine things, so that they could do them together and have mother-daughter bonding time, just like her mother and her had bonded.

But she smiled and nodded, said, "Okay Tsu-kun. Na-chan can learn kendo if that's what she wants to do. I'll find out where the dojo is and we'll get her signed up, ne?" because she was a good mama, and knew that all children were different, and forcing them to be the way she wanted wasn't the way to go.

After all, what kind of mama would she be if her children resented her?

Plus, Tsuna looked so ridiculously relieved that Nana had to giggle at her son. He was just too cute!

He gave her a sweet look of happiness and said, "Ryo-nii is finding out right now, and tomorrow, he can come and tell, and we can go."

Nana loved how decisive her Tsu-kun was being. Just like his papa, she thought fondly, missing her husband terribly.

Oh well; it couldn't be helped that his boss needed him overtime because of the business expansion. After all, Nana thought, it must be really hard to dig for oil on Mount Everest. Her husband was so amazing though, she was sure he would manage.

Even if he said the polar bears were giving him trouble, he was so muscly and strong that Nana was fairly certain he could simply punch the polar bear and it would all work out.

"Ara Tsu-kun! You're so dependable, just like papa!" she cooed, pulling him into an ecstatic hug.

Tsuna burrowed into the hug until she released him, the kettle going off. "Tell Na-chan it's nearly time for food, ne? Both of you go wash your hands." she said cheerfully, thinking that she could sign Nadeshiko up for the dojo and get the groceries done at the same time too, so that she didn't need to make two trips.

Tsuna nodded and toddled out of the room to look for his sister. On his way, he tripped on his action figure and hurt his nose.

Tsuna tried to hold it in, and for a while, he succeeded, but then he touched his nose lightly, and burst into inconsolable tears.

Nana came running out of the kitchen, and Nadeshiko made her way sedately to her elder brother from the drawing room, where she'd been perusing the list of Italian to Japanese translations papa had mailed to her.

"Tsu-kun, are you okay?" asked Nana with a hint of panic.

Nadeshiko looked at Tsuna, correctly guessed that he'd hurt his nose, and tutted in fond annoyance. _"Mio cucciolo, what are we going to do with you?"_ she asked with a sigh, before turning to mama with a look of furious concentration.

This was it, Nana thought. My daughter is going to speak to me for the first time since her papa started teaching her Japanese! I wonder what profound thing she'll say…

Nana's vision tunnelled, Tsuna's persistent crying fading into the background. Her eyes only saw her daughter, waiting for her to speak to her mama with intelligible words for the first time in nearly three years.

Nadeshiko felt very pressured. Originally, she was just going to try her luck and say that Tsuna had hurt his nose and that he'd be fine soon, but Nana was looking at her with such great expectations, Nadeshiko thought it would be kind of cruel to give her something so mundane to work with.

So instead, Nadeshiko wracked her brain for something profound, strung some words together, and hoped for the best.

She gave Nana a distant look, as though staring at a starry sky with deep contemplation. She even deepened her voice for added effect.

Nana leaned forward in anticipation.

Nadeshiko thus uttered her first ever string of Japanese words.

"The sun grows speedily in the tuna. One must be wary of the mushroom tongue."

Nana blinked.

Oh well. Odd was the new normal in her life, and Nana would just go with the flow.

"Let's get some ice for that, ne Tsu-kun?" she said cheerfully, lifting her son up and noting how heavy he'd gotten, leaving her daughter to mull over her first words.

Slowly, it dawned on her that she had made a mistake.

" _I should have said_ leg _instead of_ tongue _. No wonder mama looked confused!"_ she said aloud, making a 'duh!' expression, smacking her fist into her palm.

 _I'll do better next time_. she promised herself firmly, heading back to the drawing room to re-learn her words.

As is evident, it would be a while before she made complete sense when she spoke.

* * *

Sasagawa Ryohei knocked at the Sawada household door bright and early the next morning, his parents having only just stirred from their bed when he'd yelled an enthusiastic, "I'm going to Nade's house!"

Kyoko was the only one to see him out of the house, mindful to remind him to take his coat. Even at this age, she had begun her training in the art of being a good housewife.

Sawada Nana, being the type that liked doing the laundry early in the morning so that she could spend the rest of the morning with her twins, opened the door equally as enthusiastically.

"Ah, Ryohei-chan! Na-chan and Tsu-kun are still asleep. Why don't you go and wake them up, ne?" she said, letting him into the house.

"Thank you Nade's mama!" he yelled, taking his feet off with unneeded exuberance, before placing his bag down and running up the stairs as fast as his four year old legs could.

Which, considering he was constantly in Dying Will Mode, was saying a lot.

He had come over to tell them where the kendo dojo was, so that Nadeshiko could get registered NOW, so that she could become stronger faster, so that they could fight together with extreme passion!

Plus, he couldn't wait until the afternoon, which is when he would have been back from preschool. His short-term memory wasn't terrible, but his patience most definitely was.

Nadeshiko and Tsuna were wrapped up in their shared crib, which Nana had been planning on replacing with a proper bed soon because they really were getting far too big for it, even though the crib had initially been bought when Iemitsu had had a break down and thought they were going to have quadruplets and had ordered a customised one accordingly.

The yellow blanket was bunched up under Tsuna, who was sucking his thumb lethargically in his sleep, and Nadeshiko was busy scrunching her nose up in frustration and trying to dissolve Tsuna's knee in drool.

She was steadily succeeding.

Ryohei, in typical Ryohei fashion, barrelled into the crib headfirst and screamed, "GOOD MORNING NADE, TSUNA! IT'S MORNING! WAKE UP!"

Nade peered at him through one eye, her breath hitching as she slowly roused herself from deep sleep. Tsuna lay there, sleeping as soundly as though the entirely-too-early wakeup call had never happened.

Nadeshiko envied him.

"Ryo-chan, what?" she asked, her vocabulary as stilted as ever.

It didn't matter to Ryohei however, who was surprisingly perceptive about these things.

Other things though, were outside his limited capability of comprehension, such as personal space, rejection, affection, societal conventions, niceties, politeness, secret-keeping, and when to just _stop_.

"I came to let Nade know where the kendo dojo is!" he yelled enthusiastically.

She looked at him sleepily, and yawned with her tiny mouth. She rubbed her eyes and tried to sit up, only to give up the battle with gravity without much of a fight and fall right back into the comfy position she'd burrowed herself into at some point during the night.

"Tell mama." she mumbled, falling back to sleep.

Ryohei grinned widely at Nade's childish cuteness, and bounded over to give her a very wet kiss on the forehead. She looked at him with mild annoyance, before deciding sleep was more important than killing her potentially _only_ friend.

Meanwhile, Ryohei, oblivious to the slightly worrying thoughts going through his best friend's mind, happily rushed out of the room and down the stairs.

He was like a dog really, in that he simply did what he was told, especially when Nadeshiko said anything.

Nadeshiko didn't mind this.

It was nice to have a slave.

She snuggled further into Tsuna's knee.

Very nice indeed.

* * *

 _And so the kendo dojo next! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! The next one will be out soon, sometime in the next two days. Mia sorella is 'my sister', and mio fratello is my 'brother'. Also, because I wanted to properly immerse myself into Nadeshiko's Italian heritage, I'm now teaching myself Italian!_

 _Yes, yes I am that depressingly dedicated…_

 _Also, I know Ryohei has terrible short-term memory. Give it a while and I promise he will! :) Enough boxing and I'm sure he'll have some sense knocked out of him..._

 _So what did you think of this chapter?_


	11. The Sexist Dojo

**Something Simple**

 _'Age is of no importance, unless you are a cheese.'_

* * *

Nadeshiko was staring at herself critically in the mirror again, and Tsuna sighed. It was getting to be a bit of a bad habit now, but he didn't know exactly how to break her out of it.

She pouted, and turned her head from side-to-side—as though that made a difference, _honestly_ —, smiled without teeth, smiled with teeth, sucked in her breath, struck a model pose, hunched over and gave the mirror a scowl, and then nodded to herself, as though satisfied with the clothes mama had given her to wear today.

" _I'm not sure about the colour, but I like it for now, so I won't complain."_ she informed Tsuna, as though he'd been waiting for her final verdict.

Tsuna nodded along, not quite understanding what was wrong with the light pink frock mama had picked out for her, because it looked _exactly like all the other clothes Nade wore_ , but he wasn't going to hurt her feelings just because of that.

"Can we goes now?" he asked, taking a quick look at himself in the mirror, wondering whether pouting actually made a difference to how his blue shirt and orange shorts looked on him. He tried it, and then decided that no, it really didn't.

So why did Nade do it all the time?

Shaking his head to clear these thoughts, and seeing that Nadeshiko was ready to change her mind about the acceptability of her clothes, grabbed her right hand firmly and tugged her out of the nursery.

Mama was waiting for them at the door, an empty bag for groceries in her hand and a cheerful pastel hat on her head. Tsuna gave mama a wide smile, and beside him, Nadeshiko did the same.

Nana returned their unconditionally cheerful smile with a coo and smile of her own, pinching their cheeks and laughing at Nadeshiko's putout expression.

Tsuna simply accepted that he was adorable—he'd been told so by everyone who'd ever met him, and while it still made him blush when strangers did it, mama and Nade did it enough times that it didn't affect him anymore.

Much.

"Les go mama." Tsuna said solemnly, and mama nodded before holding out a hand for him.

With his left hand holding his _sorella_ 's hand and his right hand being held by mama, Tsuna headed in the direction Ryo-nii had told mama the kendo dojo was.

They walked through the neighbourhood before reaching the market place, and from there, mama had to ask for directions to the Kotori block, where the kendo dojo should be 'that extremely big building with a huge sign saying DISCIPLINE!' as per Ryo-nii's instructions.

Tsuna bit his lower lip nervously, hoping they'd find the right place.

He was a worrier like that.

"You just turn left here," a nice man with a bald patch told them with a gruff nod, "and then walk a bit. When you see TakeSushi, it's right across from there. You can't miss it."

Nana gave him her patented guileless smile and bowed in thanks. "Thank you so much sir! Let's go, Na-chan, Tsu-kun!"

Tsuna nodded nervously and looked at the nice man with tremulous suspicion, wondering whether aliens could look like humans. Nadeshiko was too busy looking at everything curiously and shivering in her light sweater to take in that her _fratello_ was working himself into a frenzy.

She was scatty like that.

Nana walked along the path humming softly, swinging her hand a bit, and Tsuna found her cheerfulness entirely inappropriate in the wake of the possibility that they might get abducted by aliens if they veered onto the wrong path.

Honestly, being the man of the house was _difficult_. He hoped papa came home soon.

Nadeshiko was the one who eventually spotted the dojo, stopping and staring at it with a sparkle in her eyes.

Tsuna was so busy worrying, he was yanked backwards when his hand couldn't stretch any further away from Nadeshiko. He indignantly squawked, "Nade, whyja stop?"

Nana looked at what Nadeshiko was pointing at curiously and exclaimed a happy, "Maa, Na-chan, you found the dojo!"

Tsuna squinted at the building, seeing lots of older _men_ and _boys_ of the _male variety_ going in and out of a slightly shabby but mostly well-kept one-storey building, and felt a deep sense of foreboding.

"Mama, what if i's only for boys?" he asked hesitantly, Nadeshiko already having detached herself from her brother and gone ahead to the dojo.

Nana hummed thoughtfully before ruffling Tsuna's hair. "Then Na-chan will be the first girl, ne?"

Tsuna looked at his mother with stark disbelief. "Bu' what if they don't _allow_ girls?" he asked insistently.

Nana ignored this question in favour of catching up with her daughter, who'd been stopped by a burly-looking man at the entrance.

He seemed to be asking her something to the effect of 'are you lost little girl?' and getting a butchered reply of 'the tomatoes wash the sunset green'. Nana can perhaps be excused for blowing off Tsuna's logical and _important_ question.

Perhaps.

Tsuna toddle-ran to catch-up with his family and accidentally slammed headfirst into a middle-aged woman's grocery bags.

Tsuna's eyes widened as all the woman's groceries spilled out of the white bag, the oranges rolling away and the eggs cracking as they hit the ground. "Ts-Tsu-kun's really sorry! Let Tsu-kun help!" he exclaimed, getting up to give chase to the oranges.

The woman tutted. "Children should watch where they're going. Where's your mother?" she demanded, taking the orange from Tsuna's tiny hands.

She bent over to pick up the rest of her groceries and sighed. "A dozen eggs wasted…che!"

Tsuna felt tears coming to his eyes, already sad for what he'd done and feeling even worse now that the scary lady wanted to talk to mama, probably to send him to _jail_. Tsuna didn't want to go to jail.

He started crying in earnest, still picking up the oranges and handing them to the lady, whose eyes had widened in panic. What was she going to do with this crying child?

"Oi, gaki, stop crying!" she said, trying to soften her words, to no avail. Tsuna now felt even worse because the scary lady looked confused, and that face reminded Tsuna of Nadeshiko, and that made him imagine how sad she'd feel if he went to jail _forever_.

"Tsu-kun is really sorry oba-tan!" he almost screamed, his voice squeaking in frantic hysteria.

Nadeshiko moved away from where mama was talking to the burly man, who seemed to have a deeper frown every time she blinked, to see that Tsuna was flipping out holding an orange.

She gracefully toddled over to her twin brother and sighed. " _Mio cucciolo, what are you crying about?"_ she asked, running a soothing hand through his fluffy hair.

He sniffled to her, and said, " _She send me to jail!"_

She mentally tsked, reminding herself to go over grammar with Tsuna at some point. " _No one's sending you to jail Tsuna. Calm down."_

She looked at the middle-aged, kindly woman that looked like she'd had a bad day, spotted the broken eggs, and said the only thing appropriate to the situation, considering her appalling grasp on Japanese. "Sorry. Won't happen again." she said, giving the lady a sheepish, charming grin.

She gently tapped Tsuna's head. " _Apologise with a smile, mio fratello."_

He tried his hardest to stop the tears and almost succeeded, only the occasional tear falling down his cheeks. He tried for an apologetic smile, but only managed a watery wiggle of a smile, and repeated his repentant, "Sorry oba-tan."

The woman just looked grateful that he'd stopped crying. "Just…watch where you're going next time!" she said irritably, taking the last orange from his hand and getting up abruptly, bidding a hasty retreat lest the boy start crying again.

Nadeshiko scoffed gently, before giving Tsuna a hand. He held it, hiccupping as the tears subsided, and lifted himself using her as a lever.

"I didn't mean to break her eggs." he said morosely, and Nadeshiko nodded absentmindedly.

" _Sure you didn't._ " she said, no inflection in her voice.

Tsuna sniffled again, rubbing his puffy eyes, his lower lip trembling with the effort of keeping his tears at bay.

Nana looked beside to see both her twins standing there, one looking like he'd just cried his eyes out and the other looking as nonchalant as ever.

She decided to roll with it.

"Maa, Tsu-kun, Na-chan, this nice man is saying that girls aren't allowed to join the dojo." she said, secretly grateful that her daughter wouldn't be learning such violent things and even more secretly ashamed of herself for feeling grateful that her daughter would be disappointed.

Tsuna instantly lost the lump in his throat, and the leftover fear vanished without a trace. He looked at the big burly man with a clear-eyed gaze, his eyebrows scrunching up in earnest adorable seriousness.

"Nade will try very hard, promise!" he said, trying to convince the man to let Nadeshiko join the dojo.

Nadeshiko looked at Tsuna, curiously wondering why he had said that.

The big man looked quite intimidating, his close-shaven hair making his jawline seem even bolder than usual, the scar on his chin making him look even more menacing, and the scowl on his face seeming to promise a swift punch in anyone's face if they messed with him.

Tsuna saw all of that, and swallowed his trepidation. Nadeshiko wanted to learn kendo, and Tsuna was going to be brave.

"Look gaki, even if we let girls into the dojo, _which we don't_ , two years old is pushing it." he said, his scowl deepening.

Tsuna scrunched up his face in concentration. "But we're three!" he said, stretching the truth a bit—they would turn three in another six months, but the man didn't need to know that.

Nana let him stretch the truth, largely because she wasn't sure he _was_ lying—Nana wasn't very good with remembering important dates, other than her anniversary and her husband's birthday. She ran a hand through her waist length hair, trying to come up with something that she hadn't already said to allow her daughter to join the dojo.

"Na-chan is actually quite graceful," she said cheerfully. "Maybe you can take her on a trial basis and see for yourself if she's good enough, ne?"

Tsuna didn't like that plan, but he couldn't think of anything better, and turned to Nadeshiko. _"Mia sorella, they don't let girls in. Mama said to take you for a trial. Is that okay?"_ he asked, his Italian vocabulary not quite good enough to explain the entire situation properly.

Nadeshiko looked startled, before giving the burly man an evaluating look, seeing that he was giving her one in return. She decided to give him a razor sharp polite smile and tilted her head in cutesy creepiness.

"If you will have me, onii-tan~!" she said sweetly, and the man gulped.

"We still don't take in children under the age of four!" he exclaimed, not willing to admit that the girl had scared him.

Tsuna didn't know what to do, but he didn't have to.

"Otou-san, what's the hold up!?" a child that couldn't be older than three yelled. "Class has started and you'll miss my match if you don't come!"

The burly man blushed an uncomfortable puce, and Tsuna decided that now was the time to pounce. "You were saying?" he said, injecting as much sarcasm into it as he could.

The intensifying blush meant it may or may not have worked.

"Th-that's because he's a boy! Girls are not allowed. It's the rule!" he exclaimed, indignant at this humiliation.

A man with a white band wrapped around his head emerged from the shop that Tsuna was fairly certain was TakeSushi. He looked at them curiously before hollering a cheerful greeting.

"Yo Mochida-san! What's going on here?" he asked, scratching his tanned chin in placid confusion.

"Otou-san, my match!" screamed the three year old.

The burly man—Mochida—became more and more puce by the second.

Tsuna saw a potential ally and went for it, hoping for the best. "Oji-san, my imouto wantsa learn kendo," he said in earnest distress, "but he saysa girls can't learn kendo."

* * *

The white-band man peered in interest at the little girl standing nonchalantly next to the almost pathetically innocent-looking boy that had spoken up.

"Oh! You want to learn kendo?" he asked her, wondering why a little girl that looked to be around two years old even had the _concept_ of learning how to fight in her head—lord knows that the woman who was presumably her mother looked about as docile as a doormat, and her elder brother looked like the textbook definition of a victim.

She looked at him with confused eyes, and he thought that maybe she was retarded—and that would probably explain everything.

Her brother spoke some sort of gibberish to her, and both the burly man and the white-band man wondered what on earth that was about. Nana mentally giggled, finding their secret language absolutely adorable.

After the boy had finished flailing his hands in a very colourful way, the girl's eyes cleared up and she stared at the white-band man with an unflinching certainty.

She said some gibberish, then muttered to herself, not breaking eye-contact, which made the whole thing kind of awkward, and then said in a determined voice when the boy nodded his head, as though confirming whatever the girl had decided on saying.

"I won't be weak. I won't let people hurt me or those I love." she said, the conviction in her face and voice clear.

The white-band man's eyes sharpened imperceptibly, but enough for both children to notice. Tsuna gulped and Nadeshiko lifted her chin up further, feigning that she hadn't been intimidated. "And what makes you think someone would hurt you?" he asked carefully.

She thought over his words, as though trying to work out what he meant by that. He waited patiently, Mochida next to him shuffling impatiently.

She finally decided on a reply. "Because Tsuna needs to be protected."

The boy next to her blushed in embarrassment, and the white-band man figured that he was the Tsuna the girl spoke of.

And he could see it too—the boy needed all the protecting he could _get_.

He nodded and turned to Mochida, his expression as cheerfully unassuming as usual. "Let her have a shot at it Mochida-san! After all, how many young people these days show such dedication? Why, my son can't think of anything but baseball, and he's not even three yet! Won't even think about picking up a shinai* like his old man!"

"Otou-san!" yelled the boy again, and Mochida caved under the polite pressure exerted by the girl's mother and the TakeSushi owner, and the furiously determined adorableness of 'Tsuna', and his son's incessant pestering.

"Fine! She can join, but we won't go easy on her!" he screamed, storming into the dojo and coming out with a leaflet. He shoved it unceremoniously into the little girl's tiny hands and said petulantly, "All the information is there. Don't be late! Three late strikes and we'll kick you out! Dojo policy!"

Then, he ran inside the dojo, leaving the two adults and two two-year-olds standing in varying states of bemusement.

Nadeshiko then spoke, her voice slightly dreamy and slightly serious. "I can't read."

* * *

The white-band man chuckled good-naturedly.

"Tell you what," he said with a weathered smile on his tanned face, "why don't I hold onto that for you and come pick you up at the right times? See, it says here that the timings vary, and if you're going to preschool, then you can't come to the early morning or afternoon sessions, right? You can only come to the evening sessions, and it gets pretty dark out in winter, and it's only right that I walk you to and from."

He prattled on for a bit, pointing out the information to a slightly dazed Nadeshiko. Tsuna couldn't get a word in edgewise, but finally, when he took a pause to breathe, the fluffy-brown haired boy finally spoke up, his knees trembling in anxious nervousness.

"Ano…oji-san? Nade doesn't understand Japanese very good, so you hasta speak slowlier. Please?" he said, the longer the older man's eyes staying on him, the more nervous he became.

The white-band man chuckled lightly. "Oh! That's why you look so confused? Sorry, sorry, my bad!" he said with an unassuming laugh, his words having slowed down considerably.

Tsuna relaxed slightly. Nana spoke up with a startled kind of happiness. "Maa, you don't have to go to that much trouble sir! I'm sure we'll manage just fine!" she exclaimed politely.

"It's no trouble at all! I like the little girl's conviction! Ah," he said, before turning to her, "What's your name?"

Nadeshiko was glad he'd spoken slowly enough for her to understand. She gave him a formal bow that she'd seen mama give several people when introducing themselves, and said, "My name is Nade. Please take care of me."

She gave him a brilliant smile, and Nana giggled. "Ara, Na-chan, that's too informal! You have to say, 'My name is Sawada Nadeshiko', ne?" she said.

Nadeshiko looked at her brother in askance. He looked just as confused and turned to his mama. "Mama, Nade is Nade, not that big name." he said, slightly unsure now that mama had corrected that which he'd thought was correct in the first place.

Nana shook her head. "No, no Tsu-kun! Nade is just a shorter way of saying Nadeshiko." she explained cheerfully.

Tsuna and Nadeshiko, who had understood the words mama had spoken, gaped at her with unbridled horror.

Clearly, their lives had been a lie.

And then Sawada Nana dropped another bombshell, as casually as the Americans dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Just like Tsu-kun! Tsuna is just short for Tsunayoshi."

Tsunayoshi and Nadeshiko decided that this was a huge breach of their trust in the world—they would thusly reject all forms of placation from everyone about this huge discrepancy between the real world and their world.

Tsuna was apparently _Tsunayoshi_ , and Nade was apparently _Nadeshiko_.

What was the world coming to!?

* * *

 _The next chapter should be out in the next two days! What did you think about this chapter? It's a bit drawn out, I admit, but I had fun writing it! And it gives more of an insight into Tsuna's way of thinking, right? Right. Was Tsuyoshi in character? And the rest of them? Also, longest chapter in this story yet! Milestones! :)_

 _Also, to the guest reviewer that kind of binge-reviewed, THANK YOU! It's stuff like that that makes writing feel worthwhile! :)_


	12. The Typical Day

**Something Simple**

 _'I don't hold grudges. I just remember them for a very long time.'_

* * *

Sawada Nadeshiko was dreaming.

It was a very bizarre dream and she wasn't quite sure she liked it, but that was neither here nor there. It was a sort of mixture between memory and irrationality, and Lucia wasn't sure she was okay with that kind of distortion.

There was a fog in her mind's eye, a purple fog, and there was a tiny dog watching her with livid yellow eyes. He barked at her, and she remembered jumping back, bumping into a strong, lean chest.

She remembered turning around, her bare back rubbing against a cheap suit, her blonde curls getting caught on the buttons.

" _Sorry sir,"_ she remembered saying, " _I didn't see you there."_

He looked at her, and the dream showed her deep red eyes filled with menace, the sounds of gun firing echoing in the background as she stared at his long eyelashes.

But Lucia remembered kinder, greener eyes, and remembered thinking that she could easily fall in love with those eyes.

And she had, to a large extent.

It was one of her greatest regrets.

He responded in the deep baritone voice that Lucia knew she would never really forget—never forget the way the silky tones sluiced across her skin, traced her very core in the middle of the night, whispered over soft sheets that clung to her creamy thighs as the moon barely lit his bare chest, and clung to her like viscous honey, weighing her down and making her feel unbearably sensual at the same time.

Yes, Lucia could _never_ forget that voice.

" _Dolce Lucia,"_ he'd whispered one night, _"Stay with me forever."_

And Lucia had believed that that was love, that he _loved_ her, that he wanted to be her forever.

And Lucia, who had never had any love for herself, had never understood the concept until her baby had been born, had agreed to stay with him, because even if this wasn't true love, it was a dependent, perhaps even a corrosive, kind of love.

It burned through her, searing her bones and slicing her tendons, making her weaker and weaker and weaker.

In the dream, the menacing version of her ex-boyfriend loomed over her, and she began struggling. The dog that had never existed barked louder and louder, bounding towards them on overly large paws, growling as he slid a hand across her breasts.

" _We could have been happy together Lucia,"_ he whispered forlornly, _"if only you hadn't been so stubborn. What a tragedy..."_

He traced the contours of her cheek with his pale long fingers, the nails as immaculately trimmed as ever. _"You died dolce Lucia, and your son—our son—he's dead too now, all because of your stubbornness."_

And before she could even whimper, he kissed her, raging teeth and molten fire drowning her again and again and again—

And Nadeshiko woke up, her breath heaving.

* * *

Tsuna woke up abruptly, and it took him a while to realise that the reason was that the comfortable weight that had been resting on his stomach all night was missing.

He sat up and yawned, rubbing his sleepy eyes tiredly.

He looked over to Nadeshiko and his eyes widened in fear.

"Umm, Nade, why are you…blooding?" he asked hesitantly, staring at the crescent-shaped wounds on her small palms, her fists still clenched and making the wound bleed even more.

She stared at her lap unseeingly, glaring at it with murderous intent.

" _Tsuna,"_ she said, her accent so thick that Tsuna almost couldn't understand what she was saying. " _I loved him, enough to want to live with him forever, and he chose to destroy that by threatening to take away the one thing that made me happy. And he has the_ _ **gall**_ _to come into MY dream and blame_ _ **me**_ _for his disgusting behaviour!? I don't care that he's stronger and more influential than me…I don't care that he has multiple guns and the power to break my mind with just a glance…I don't care that he would make my end as painful as possible for betraying him, I don't care! I WILL END HIM IF I SEE THAT DISGUSTINGLY HANDSOME FACE EVER AGAIN!"_

With that out of her system, Nadeshiko seemed to calm down completely, unclenching her fists and looking up to see Tsuna's pale and worried face.

He looked unable to come up with anything to say, not understanding where this anger had come from, and not quite understanding all the words his little sister had said in her rapid fire Italian. But he'd understood enough for his two and a half years old mind to know that Nadeshiko was sad-mad, and he, as her big brother, needed to say something to make the sad-mad go away.

He took her right hand in his left and said solemnly, "I love you Nade, so the meany man doesna mean anything anymore."

Nadeshiko looked at their joined hands, looked at his serious face, and felt _safe_ and _loved_ and she laughed, and she hugged him, and she loved him even more.

" _You're right mio cucciolo,"_ she said with a relieved sigh, _"the mean man doesn't matter anymore. After all, I have you, and mama, and papa, and Ryo-chan now."_

She kissed his forehead softly, ruffling his brown hair, and gave him a soft smile. "Thank you nii-chan."

He blushed slightly, and got out of the crib, plodding softly out of the room in his socked feet. "You're welcome imouto." he said shyly, hearing Nadeshiko call him nii-chan for the first time embarrassing him tremendously.

She giggled at his red ears, and got out of the crib herself.

The twins went into the bathroom, pulled out the stool to stand on so that they could reach the sink, and picked up their toothbrushes from the drawer on the side.

Nadeshiko carefully squeezed out a pea-sized amount of red toothpaste onto Tsuna's dark blue toothbrush, and then put a bit more on her own light pink one.

The two brushed their teeth noisily, Tsuna losing most of his toothpaste to the sink in the first few seconds and Nadeshiko eventually getting fed up and brushing his teeth for him.

They washed their faces, Tsuna spilling nearly all the water onto his light blue pyjamas, and then smiled at the mirror to see the whiteness of their teeth.

Satisfied with their teeth, Nadeshiko and Tsuna walked over to the towel hanging on the railing and rubbed their faces roughly, Tsuna rubbing his hair as well because of all the water he'd accidentally doused it with.

The two toddlers then went back to their room to get changed.

Here, Nadeshiko, as per usual, spent five minutes staring at the clothes in their shared cupboard, and Tsuna just picked out the first thing his hands touched. And even though she took ten minutes just choosing what to wear, because of Tsuna's inability to coordinate and not trip over his own feet and not get tangled up in his sleeves, they both finished dressing at the same time.

Then, holding hands, they both braved the stairs. Tsuna never tripped when he was holding Nadeshiko's hand, and so there were thankfully never any incidents of the blood-splattered-on-the-staircase variety.

They then toddled into the kitchen and greeted mama with beaming smiles, going up to her and hugging her legs, Tsuna the right and Nadeshiko the left.

Just as she did every day, she ruffled both their hair, pinched their cheeks, and told them to sit down while she set the food on the table.

Just like every day, Tsuna helped Nadeshiko up to her chair, and then climbed his own with minimal difficulty, and they both tried teaching each other their main language.

Nadeshiko would get her Japanese vocabulary sorted out a little every day, and Tsuna would learn new words and phrases in Italian every day.

After a few minutes, mama came to the table with the world's best omelette, and the three of them ate their breakfast in cheerful peace.

Then, Tsuna got up and helped Nadeshiko get out of her high chair, and they both relocated to the living room while mama cleared up the table.

Nadeshiko headed straight for the stack of papers in the corner, determined to spend at least an hour or two going over the words and phrases and explanations papa had sent her in the mail a month ago.

Tsuna went to the toy box in the corner of the room and picked out action figures, two of the three he had, and planned on playing make-believe for the next hour or so, but his mama had different ideas.

Six minutes after they'd started on their respective activities, mama came into the room with a thin book and called Tsuna to her.

Tsuna dropped his toys where they were and ran-toddled to his mama, tripping and crashing face first into the table.

He had a giant bruise on his forehead and, gingerly feeling it, he began wailing at the top of his lungs. Nadeshiko spared him a glance before going back to her pages, muttering the words under her breath.

Nana cooed at Tsuna, going over to him and blowing on his bruise. "See, Tsu-kun, all the pain is going away, ne? My little baby is so strong, ne?"

Soon, Tsuna quieted down and both mother and son sat down to peruse a children's book.

Nana's soothing voice broke the silence gently, Tsuna's excited squealing as the story progressed and his delightfully chirpy questions occasionally causing Nadeshiko to look up from her papers.

The sun streamed into the living room and the clouds lazily swept overhead as Nadeshiko got through first one page and then another, memorising them as best as she could, and mama finished reading the story to Tsuna.

"…and the fairy wished them a good night. Rika-chan gave her a smile, and went to sleep, dreaming of all the adventures she'd had with her new pet dog. The end!" finished Nana.

Tsuna squealed in happiness. "Can we get a pet dog mama?" he asked, the story he'd just been read creating fantastical visions in his mind's eye.

Nadeshiko looked up at this exclamation and stood up.

She cleared her throat, trying very hard not to mess up the syllables or the words. "You're already a puppy. We don't need more." she said, relatively sure that she'd used the right words and syntax.

Judging by mama's small giggle and Tsuna's cute pout, she'd succeeded. Nadeshiko beamed, glad that her efforts had paid off.

"But Nade, I'm not a puppy!" he whined, and Nadeshiko gave him an amused look.

Carefully, she constructed her reply, realising that conversation would be very stilted if she had to keep doing this whenever she had to speak in Japanese. "Yes, you are. You trip, and fall, and stumble, and squeal, and make cute puppy eyes." she declared matter-of-factly, and Tsuna pouted, unable to counter her assertions.

Nana giggled, hugging Tsuna closer to her. "Maa, Na-chan's right! But my Tsu-kun is more like a bunny, ne?"

She hadn't slowed down her speech—she never had, even though she'd realised a while ago that if she did, her daughter might understand her. She didn't want to fall into a bad habit and make Nadeshiko think her mama genuinely thought she was slow or stupid.

Besides, the moment Nadeshiko replied to her words without the pause she always had to take before figuring out what was said, Nana would know it was the time to send them to preschool.

It was as simple as that, really.

Nadeshiko finally understood the gist of what had been said. "No mama," she answered carefully, "bunnies don't trip."

Nana hummed in amused agreement and Tsuna puffed out his cheeks in petulant disagreement. "If it's like that, then Nade is a potato! Lumpy, and she becomes mushy in water!" he exclaimed.

Nadeshiko blinked twice, processing the words, and then blushed brightly. "Th-that's… _scortese!_ I'm not lumpy! I'm cute!"

She didn't know the Japanese word for rude, so she'd had to substitute, but she was fairly certain she hadn't messed up the rest of the sentence.

 _Hmmm, maybe it's better if I try mixing the two languages for now, just to see whether it's easier to do…_ she mused while giving Tsuna a huffy look.

He pouted and began tearing up. "Tsu-kun is sorry for being _scortese_ imouto!" he said frantically, fat tears rolling down his rounded cheeks.

Nadeshiko instantly felt bad for making him cry. "Ts-Tsuna, please don't cry! It's okay if I'm lumpy!" she said, rushing over to him and patting his head.

Nana smiled, her heart squeezing in painful happiness at seeing her babies argue and make-up, all in the space of one minute, the pain intensifying the more it hit home that this was yet another memory her husband had missed.

She sighed quietly, both in happiness and in sadness, and hugged both her children to her.

"Maa, why don't we go out to ice cream? Yamamoto-san was kind enough to call and let me know what gear we needed to get for Na-chan, so let's go do that too, ne?" she said, getting up and ushering them to their room.

Nadeshiko waited for Tsuna to calm down and explain what their mother had just said, and she nodded.

Mama laid down a light green shirt and pink skirt with green flowers on it on the crib for Nadeshiko, and then pulled out a dark green check t-shirt paired with blue shorts for Tsuna.

"Get changed Tsu-kun, Na-chan!" she said cheerfully, going to get changed herself.

* * *

After Tsuna had dribbled his ice cream down the front of his shirt, and then got the second one that was bought for him stolen by a run-by thieving cat, got scratched terribly by said cat and managed to land on his leg wrong so that it broke, and was then taken to the hospital to have it set, the Sawada family returned to their house.

Nadeshiko was shaking her head at Tsuna's clumsiness and bad luck, while Nana was washing him with soothing words to get him to stop crying.

She had given Nadeshiko the shopping bag that had caused all the trouble with the leg to begin with, and she was carrying Tsuna all the way home.

When they got there, the white-band man that the entire family now knew to be Yamamoto Tsuyoshi stood at their gate, looking at the 'Sawada' plate and muttering to himself, as though trying to figure out whether it was the right place or not.

"Ah, Yamamoto-san! Sorry we're a bit late! Tsu-kun broke his leg, so we had to take him to the hospital!" she called cheerfully.

Tsuyoshi rubbed the back of his neck and laughed good-naturedly. "Seems like Nadeshiko-chan has the right idea about learning kendo for him then!"

The embarrassment Tsuna felt couldn't be measured by conventional means. It would have to be extrapolated from previously acquired data as 'off the charts and into the next galaxy'. Nadeshiko smiled fondly at her elder brother and tugged on his unbroken leg.

He looked down at her from his perch on mama's hip with a red face.

" _They mean nothing by it mio fratello. Sticks and stones, right?"_ she said with a warm smile, and Tsuna smiled back, some of the embarrassment fading away.

"Speaking of," Tsuyoshi continued, as though the two adults hadn't been watching the twins interact, "If you can get ready in five minutes, then we'll make it on time. Otherwise, we'll be late."

Nadeshiko's eyes widened and Tsuna began apologising rapidly. She tugged on mama's skirt, who quickly extracted the house keys from her purse and handed them over to her daughter.

Nadeshiko practically _flew_ to the door with the shopping bag in hand, and didn't even bother going upstairs to change, just ran into the downstairs store room and quickly went from wearing a cutesy ensemble to tying a white cloth belt around her waist to hold the kendo hakama in place, correctly assuming she just didn't have the time to carefully tie it the way the storeowner had shown her.

It was lucky as it was that there was a hakama of her size _and_ for females available, almost as though someone had gone out of their way to arrange it for her…

She shook the suspicious thoughts out of her head, muttered a thank you to the heavens, and ran to the living room, surprisingly not tripping over the hakama.

She quickly ran to the table and found one of mama's hair ties in the tuna fish shaped decorative plate, and she hastily tied her hair back in a proper ponytail without any hair falling into her face.

By the time she'd run out onto the driveway and reached the amiably chatting adults and the worried looking Tsuna, she'd managed to put on the kendo footwear and straighten out her white hakama without tripping even once.

"Ah, that was _quick_!" exclaimed Tsuyoshi, pleasantly surprised that it only took her three minutes to change out of her clothes completely.

Tsuna was even more surprised, and if given the time, he might have worked himself into a hysterical seizure, because Nade took _ten_ minutes just _deciding_ what to wear!, but he didn't get a chance to because Nadeshiko hugged his unbroken leg goodbye and gave mama a radiant smile, before taking Yamamoto Tsuyoshi's hand in one hand and holding her supplies with the other and walking away.

"Maa Tsu-kun, it's just the two of us now! Na-chan won't be back for another four hours, so what would Tsu-kun like to do?" she asked cheerfully, naturally plodding into her house and locking the door behind her.

Tsuna brushed away the slight feeling of abandonment and said, "Hamburger mama!"

Nana giggled at her son's excited cuteness, brushing her own feelings of slight abandonment, and nodded cheerfully.

"Alright, and let's make some for Na-chan when she comes back, ne? I'm sure she'll be very hungry after all that exercising she'll be doing!"

Tsuna nodded earnestly, carefully setting himself on the kitchen chair lest he fall and break the other leg too (two casts were more than he could bear, at this point), and watched mama take out the ingredients to make the food from scratch.

The mother and son of the Sawada household giggled and squealed the evening away, as the daughter was put through rudimentary drills with the beginners, and the father shot a man through his brain, careful not to get any stains on his immaculate suit.

Just a typical day in the life of the Sawada family.

* * *

 _What do you think of this chapter then? Please give me feedback on the memory-dream, because that's the first time I've written anything even remotely mature and I want to know whether I've done it alright or not…_

 _Please review and let me know?_

 _Also, I'm getting into the bad habit of writing more than 3000 words for each chapter...must stop myself! ;)_

 _Also, it'll never come out, but the person who ensured there was a kendo outfit for a_ **two** _year old was Hibari, whether it was his father or himself is entirely irrelevant. He's cool like that - I mean, he kind of owns Namimori and its people, doesn't he? He was the one who 'encouraged' her after all, and it would be remiss of him not to provide the basics so that she could become less herbivorous and troublesome._


	13. The Evaluation Anxiety

**Something Simple**

 _'My anxieties have anxieties.'_

* * *

Sawada Tsuna was having a bad day.

It was the time of the year where everything was becoming colder, his little sister was going further and further into hibernation and refusing to go outside, Kyoko was wearing a pretty pink scarf that an older boy gifted to her, and mama was wistful.

Now, normally, Tsuna was no stranger to wistfulness—his imouto got wistful about the strangest things, like cheese and loose teeth and swallowing toothpaste, but that was a bearable kind of wistfulness, where she got misty-eyed, said something strange, and then went back to normal.

No, mama's brand of wistfulness was _destructive_.

She would get all their baby clothes out (so many embarrassing vomit stains that Tsuna _would never get over_ ), cover the house with her wedding and honeymoon photos, spend _hours and hours and hours_ talking about how she and papa had met, and then make them snuggle with her in bed.

Now, that was _okay_ —not the best arrangement, but okay.

It was that she did that even when Kaoru-ba-san or Tsuyoshi-san came over as well.

Tsuna had a permanent apologetic look on his face whenever anyone came over, and Nadeshiko was absolutely no help, being all sleepy and irritable without his help. She even refused to go to kendo practise that one time because she was 'catching up on her beauty sleep'!

Luckily, Tsuyoshi-san's arrival had made her grudgingly get dressed, but Tsuna's anxiety levels had skyrocketed that day, and he wasn't quite certain he'd gotten over it yet.

No, the closer and closer they got to winter, the worse and worse Tsuna's home situation became.

It was _awful_.

"Tsu-kun, Na-chan! Did mama ever tell you about the second time papa bought mama a bouquet of flowers, and then gave it to another girl?" she said nostalgically from the living room, where she sat with a photo album stocked with all kinds of pictures on her lap. "Papa was so handsome and chivalrous, he bought me a Siamese penguin as an apology! But it got lost in the mail, so he took me out to this quaint little tea shop and—"

The worst part of it was that, unlike Nadeshiko, Tsuna didn't have the luxury of mostly not understanding what his mama was saying, and his respect for his papa was dwindling with each word that came out of mama's mouth.

Every. Single. Word.

Because even Tsuna had heard this story enough times to know that 'quaint little tea shop' meant that cheap street vendor Hibari-sama had evicted because of bad hygiene.

Oh, and today was an _especially bad day_ , because Hibari-sama was coming to their house to visit for an 'evaluation'.

Tsuna seemed to be the only person in the house that actually thought this was out-of-place or even remotely _bad_ , because mama thought that it was very kind of their mayor to drop by for a nice chat, and Nadeshiko had muttered something about never escaping the ruling famiglias wherever she might have been, and Tsuna was just—

He had had to go the bathroom _twice_ , and he'd even wet the bed.

Nadeshiko had chuckled at his red face when they'd woken up to wet sheets and realised what had happened, and she'd even told him it was completely normal, but Tsuna hadn't believed her—after all, _she'd_ never wet the bed!

It was two thirty now, and Tsuna sighed. Obviously, he couldn't tell time using the clock hanging in the hall, but he'd asked _sorella_ and she'd glanced at it and told him with no inflection, " _Sono le due e mezza del pomeriggio, mio cucciolo. I'm going to have to teach you to read time soon."_

Tsuna had simply nodded, and repeated the phrase she'd spoken to him in Japanese back to her, so that she could learn how to say it.

She still sounded like she was saying onion instead of minutes, but Tsuna wasn't one to judge.

It had been yesterday, when Nadeshiko had been at the dojo and Tsuna and mama had been shopping, that a tall man with dark ruffled hair and a cruel tilt to his eyes had brandished steel tonfas and beaten a person to near death because 'he'd looked suspicious wearing a pink tie in this weather'.

Tsuna had never been so scared in his life, but that wasn't saying much, considering he found the dark space in his cupboard a source of deep-seated anxiety.

Then he'd turned to mama, who had missed the entire thing because she was trying to find some change in her purse, and said, "I've left you to settle down long enough. It's time for evaluation. Two forty-five. I expect green tea. No lunch."

He'd waited a second for mama to register the words, and then without waiting for an affirmative, he'd stalked away, jumped onto a roof, and disappeared from sight.

Tsuna was sure that the man was dangerous _and_ a ninja, but when he'd told Nade this, she'd just looked at him weirdly and said, " _You worry too much."_

But it was two thirty now, and mama was still babbling about her non-existent Siamese penguin (Tsuna had told Nadeshiko this, thoroughly impressed, and she'd giggled and told him that there were no such things. He'd slowly started realising that maybe papa wasn't heroic at all, and might just be a pathological liar.), and Nadeshiko was still semi-hibernating in the living room, snuggly wrapped in their yellow blanket and scrutinising the vocabulary pages loosely clasped in her hands, as though she was losing the battle against sleep with every word she read.

Tsuna had tried to get her to change out of her pyjamas (insisted on it, even), but she'd given him a baby glare, and he'd melted, any form of resistance he'd mustered flying out of the window.

But now Hibari-sama was coming (Tsuyoshi-san had told them last evening that they just needed to be themselves and 'Hibari-sama will do you no harm, haha!' and it was _that_ , more than anything else, that had made him realise just how dangerous this man was going to be—Tsuyoshi-san had called him Hibari _-sama_ ) and mama hadn't even _begun_ preparing the green tea.

Tsuna was wringing the hem of his shirt in nervousness, wanting to stop mama's monologue but knowing from past experience that if he did, she would take twice as long and even get _teary-eyed_ , and glanced out the window for the fourth time this evening, hoping against hope that Hibari-sama had simply forgotten about the rendezvous and had even, with any luck, forgotten about them completely.

No such luck, because the minute mama closed the photo album she was perusing and was reaching out for another one from the box next to her feet, Tsuna saw the intimidating, lean figure of Hibari-sama swiftly streaking through the driveway and towards their door.

He'd only just meep!-ed in fright, and Hibari-sama had already rung the doorbell.

Mama looked confused for all of two seconds, before her eyes cleared up in astonishment. "Ara, I completely forgot we were having a guest today! Na-chan, go up and get dressed, ne? Tsu-kun, go open the door!" she exclaimed, unhurriedly heading to the kitchen.

Nadeshiko blinked at him sleepily, and the most he could do was shudder in fright, before hurriedly saying, " _Up, change dress, important guest."_

She blinked at him again before yawning, stretching and practically crawling up the stairs. Tsuna was having a panic attack, which only got worse when the doorbell rang again.

Tsuna could _feel_ the impatience emanating from the other side of the door.

He was really scared, but mama had told him to go open the door, so he went to open the door, and when the door opened—

Tsuna peed his pants.

Their guest looked at him, and while most normal people would look either sympathetic or disgusted, Hibari-sama _smirked in satisfaction_.

Tsuna gave into his cowardly instincts, bolstered by his shameful embarrassment, and ran up the stairs to his room.

When he got to his room, having had three near-misses on the staircase, he was out of breath and near tears.

Nadeshiko was standing in front of their cupboard, gazing at it with sleepy eyes, and turned around to look at him curiously.

" _Tsuna, did you wet yourself?"_ she asked, making it sound like as if she was asking about the weather or something equally as mundane, and not as though this wasn't _the single most embarrassing moment in Tsuna's life!_

He nodded hesitantly, two fat tears rolling down his chubby cheeks as he sniffled.

Nadeshiko gave him a short grin and dragged him out of the room to the bathroom.

" _Come on, take off your shorts; that's it, now go stand in the tub Tsuna. Yeah, just like that, now lift up your shirt a bit so it doesn't get wet—good boy! Now, the water will be a bit cold, but it'll be quick okay? No, no! Don't squirm so much or you'll get your shirt wet mio cucciolo! That's it, okay, now step out of the tub onto the mat and I'll get you a towel."_

By the time the both of them were dressed and ready to properly greet the guest, it was exactly three o'clock in the afternoon. Tsuna was hiding behind Nadeshiko slightly, afraid of the guest even more now that he'd embarrassed himself in front of him. She'd simply given him an indulgent smile and let him.

"Ah, Tsu-kun, Na-chan, come say hello to our mayor, Hibari Ken-sama! He wanted to know about Na-chan learning kendo and made a special visit to see how she was doing!" mama said when she spotted them toddling into the living room.

Tsuna's knees started knocking together, and his hands were trembling—what did this scary man want with Nade?

Nadeshiko, for her part, looked at mama blankly, before leaning towards Tsuna infinitesimally to get him to translate. He did so reflexively, and she nodded in understanding.

Tsuna worried about what she would do next, while mama looked as relaxed as though she was on some beach resort without a care in the world.

Tsuna might have to already start planning early retirement.

* * *

Hibari-sama scrutinised the twins with boredom, uninterested in the two weaklings that had sprouted in his Namimori, but his duty needed to be done, especially if the girl could be a threat to his town's safety.

One destructive juggernaut in the form of his son was more than enough for Namimori to handle, after all. It didn't need any more alphas.

The girl finished listening to her whispering brother and then locked her eyes on his, their doe-eyed gaze unflinching.

Hibari-sama's instincts purred, and his mind sharpened in excitement.

Ho, he thought, a tiger hiding among the sheeple.

She said, still not breaking eye contact, "Good morning Hibari-sama. I'm Swada Nadeshko. The lemons are ripe tomorrow."

Hibari-sama felt a tingle in his throat, threatening laughter, but he suppressed it—perhaps the girl was speaking in code or something. One couldn't underestimate people who dared hold his gaze with no signs of fear.

He inclined his head slightly at her bow, thoroughly uninterested in the babbling of the completely ordinary, if a tad dangerously oblivious, woman sitting opposite him.

The house was comfortably messy, and looked like an acceptable environment to be raising kids in. The kitchen was well stocked so they had no need to take advantage of his 'generosity', and the mother was stay-at-home, so there was no need to network around to find an appropriate babysitter.

The husband was abroad, the woman was functional, the boy was a wimp (might be bullied, but it was character building, so he didn't really care much about that), and everything would have been fine and dandy and he would have been on his way at this point.

Except the _girl_.

She was still not breaking eye contact, watching his every move with a poker face.

Instead of even remotely paying attention to what the girl's mother was prattling on about (he'd done so for the first five minutes to gauge her mental astuteness and stability, and had found himself comfortably disappointed that she was about as average as average could get), he instigated a staring contest with the girl, shadowing his eyes and piercing through her soul, ready to work out what made her tick.

In the next ten minutes, even the babbler had shut up, and the boy hadn't made a mouse squeak for a record-holding time of forty five seconds.

The girl had blinked a total of four times, and he'd blinked twice, a feat previously unheard of.

Slowly, Hibari-sama uncovered that the girl before him wasn't really a girl at all—she was actually an Italian woman who'd had a violent upbringing and knew the pain of death. On a side note, she wasn't looking for trouble but was expecting to kick trouble in the balls nonetheless, and wasn't very likely to interfere with his son's reign.

 _How_ he figured out all of this can be summed up in one statement: he was a Hibari.

Then, she blinked again and bowed to him respectfully, likely having decided that he was superior to her, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement of her past and resolve for her future.

He then got up, didn't bother to observe any of the basic etiquettes of home-leaving, barring a distracted 'Excuse me', and stalked away to find his next prey.

He was getting a tad bit bored of Namimori actually—might decide to travel soon.

Besides, the Italian girl wouldn't really start being interesting for a while yet.

Pity. His son would get to have that fun.

* * *

Nadeshiko had just met her first crush.

Tsuna had just met the father of his future strongest guardian.

Nana had lost a tea cup to the cause.

"Oh well," she mused cheerfully, "at least I know he liked the green tea I made!"

* * *

 _That sentence in Italian was just her telling him the time - two thirty. Sheeple is just sheep-people, so like sheep mentality, you know? I figured herbivore-carnivore was a Hibari Kyouya thing, so...why let his dad have the absolutely exact same character as him, right?_

 _Sorry for the week-long delay! I'd only just realised it's been a week, and I was horrified!_

 _So what do you think of this chapter? Hibari-sama will never show up in the story again, except in passing thoughts, if at all._

 _Thank you for all your feedback on the memory-dream last chapter! You guys are golden!_

 _Were they all in character? Was it a plausible turn of events? Was Tsuna's panicking justified? He did wet the bed until end of primary school after all - that was canon. Was hearing Tsuna's panicking funny?_

 _Review please?_


	14. The Double Foreshadowing

**Something Simple**

 _'Being a daddy's girl is like having permanent armour for the rest of your life.'_

* * *

The birds were chirping, Nadeshiko was drooling, and Tsuna was having a dream about giant mushrooms. All was well.

Suddenly, Nana cheerfully burst into the calm silence of the twins' bedroom and chirped a 'good morning!', flinging open the curtains to let the sun in with reckless abandon.

"It's such a good day outside, thank goodness! Na-chan, you have morning kendo practice today, ne? You need to wake up now or you'll be late!" she exclaimed, shaking her children awake.

They both blinked blearily at their mama, and then looked at each other, nodded, and promptly fell back into their positions and went back to sleep.

Nana giggled at her children's cuteness, before cheerfully lifting the frying pan and steel ladle she'd brought with her.

"Last chance Tsu-kun, Na-chan!" she said, feeling quite sadistic for some reason.

When Nadeshiko mumbled into Tsuna's stomach and then quietened down without even causing a proper stir, Nana started banging the ladle against the pan, the clanging sound loud enough to awaken the dead.

Both orangey-brown eyed twins startled awake, their deer-brown hair mussed up. Tsuna pouted at her and whined, "Mama! Too loud!"

Nadeshiko scrambled out of the crib and ran to the bathroom, unwilling to wait for mama to stop banging the pan, quite rightly guessing that mama was in a _mood_. Tsuna followed soon after.

When they'd wiped their faces, mama held out Nadeshiko's kendo gear for her to change into as she cheerfully led Tsuna back into the bathroom for a shower, seeing as how he'd fallen asleep the previous night without taking one.

Nadeshiko blew a stray piece of hair out of her eyes and went into her bedroom, took off her sleeping clothes, and quickly changed into her hakama. She tied it at the front with great difficulty and waning patience, and then brushed her hair rather roughly before scooping it up into a ponytail.

As soon as she toddled out of her room, she heard a crash from the bathroom and Tsuna's whimpering, as well as the distinctive ring of the landline.

She gracefully toddled over to the phone and picked it up from the cradle, and with a deep breath and a mumbled self-encouragement, she said, "Moshi moshi! Sawada residence. Who is the shark I am sleeping with?"

She thought she'd gotten that correct, but judging by the boisterous laughter coming from the other end, she must have made a minor mistake.

 _Next time, I'll get it right for sure!_ she promised herself, pumping her clenched fist in determination.

" _Mia patatina, you need to work on your speaking skills a lot more if you want to be a functioning member of society!"_ came a cheerful loud voice.

Nadeshiko's whole face lit up in happiness and she squealed, " _Papa!?"_

Iemitsu laughed in reply, saying, " _Did you miss me_ musume? _"_

"Musume _means frog, right?"_ she asked, mentally making notes.

" _No no!_ Musume _means daughter! Have you even been reading what I've sent you? Basil is learning ten times faster than you Nade!"_ he exclaimed raucously.

Immediately, Nadeshiko's smile dropped into a frown. " _Who's Basil?"_

Iemitsu chuckled. " _No need to sound like a woman scorned mia patatina! Basil is this lovely boy I've recently taken in. Ah, but don't tell Nana, alright? She'll worry too much, and she shouldn't have to, because she's the only woman in my heart!"_

Nadeshiko smiled gently, reminded almost painfully of what it was like to be so wholly in love with someone that you were willing to hide the most important parts of you so that they continued loving you, even when you knew you didn't _really_ deserve their love.

" _Don't worry papa! It'll be our little secret. Basil is around my age?"_

" _Sì! Same age actually, if our estimates are correct…ah, but let's not worry about that! Nana tells me you're learning kendo now?"_

She nodded and uttered an affirmative. " _It's a lot of fun, even though I wish I could smash Mochida-sensei's face in!"_ she giggled sweetly, and the almost palpable silent freaking out at the other end confirmed her suspicions that Tsuna got his worrywart tendencies from papa, not mama—she would probably remain oblivious while being carried away by a sandstorm…

"… _I see. And Mochida-sensei is mean to you?"_ he asked, slightly concerned.

She shook her head. _"He yells a lot, but I have absolutely no idea what he's saying, and then he goes all red when I blank him. But sometimes he gets that holier-than-thou look on his face and it makes my blood boil!"_

" _But the training itself is going well, right?"_ he asked, wondering how long it would take to clear his schedule enough to manage a month long trip back home—clearly, there was a lot he was missing out on.

Nadeshiko frowned in thought, just as the doorbell rang and Tsuna finished showering.

" _We're still doing individual training for now, and I've only just started, so I'm still learning the etiquette-y stuff. It's interesting though, so it's alright for now! Papa, Tsuyoshi-san is here! I've got to go! I love you!"_ she cheerfully stated.

"… _I love you too mia patatina."_ Iemitsu said gently, almost sadly, and Nadeshiko wished she had more time to talk to him but Tsuyoshi-san was calling her from the door, and it was rude to make him wait.

" _Don't feel sad papa. Everyone grows up, but I'll wait for you if you want me to."_ she said instead, as if some sort of hyper intuition was nudging her to the right words.

When Iemitsu laughed through the phone, she knew it was the right thing to say.

She grinned and handed over the phone to mama, running as fast as she could to Tsuyoshi-san.

"Took you long enough!" he said happily, sticking a hand out for her to grab onto. "Then we'll be leaving first Nana-san!"

Nana waved good bye, clinging onto the phone with one hand. "Have fun Na-chan! And don't forget, the wedding is in the afternoon!"

She nodded, confused about what had just been said, and walked out of the house hand-in-hand with the owner of TakeSushi.

Said owner scratched his head in confusion, and then turned to look at his only source of information dubiously. "What's this your mother said about marriage Nadeshiko-chan?"

Nadeshiko blinked up at him, sure that she'd translated that wrong. "Wedding, like as in becoming husband and wife?" she asked, positive that she'd said that right.

When Tsuyoshi nodded, Nadeshiko hummed in contemplation. "Probably Ryo-chan's fault." she said, and then, as though the matter was closed after that declaration, she continued on as if nothing had happened at all.

Tsuyoshi wondered who this Ryo-chan was, and why Nadeshiko said it as though it explained everything when it _didn't_.

Instead of asking however, he nodded, and the two of them walked to the dojo in amiable silence.

* * *

Nadeshiko was almost hyperventilating.

Tsuna gave her an unimpressed look, flushed as he was from the embarrassment of the situation.

"Nade, this i' the most impo'tant day of my life." he said emphatically, stressing the words so that it would get through to her.

Nadeshiko continued laughing hysterically.

Tsuna pouted and looked in the mirror at himself, loosening his miniature tie a little bit. His face was still as flushed as it was an hour ago, but Tsuna didn't know how to change that.

Nana peaked her head into her children's room. "Are you ready Tsu-kun? Kyoko-chan is waiting for you outside!" she informed them cheerfully.

She came into the room, and Nadeshiko had only just recovered from her bout of giggles when Nana exclaimed, "Ara, my little boy is getting married today! I'm so proud!"

She tried really hard to keep a straight face, but when Tsuna threw her a pouty dirty look, his wide shining eyes and baby-chubby cheeks ruining the effect entirely, Nadeshiko lost her battle completely and burst into another round of giggles.

Nadeshiko had only ever heard of playground weddings, where young children professed their love for one another with great aplomb and then proceeded to forget that the event ever happened, but she hadn't thought that it would happen so close to home. In fact, she had never thought that Ryohei would have had the temerity to get the two of them into such an ambiguously hilarious situation, and for them to both go along with it.

Nadeshiko thought that this was _priceless_.

"Mama," she said, breathing deeply to regain some level of sobriety. "Make sure to take lots of pictures."

Tsuna nodded, and then looked at her with a wounded puppy level of suspicion. _"Mia sorella…"_

She replied with an innocent, _"Mio fratello?"_ and gave him a look of deceptive sweetness.

It didn't fool Tsuna one bit—he was her big brother after all, and that meant that if there was anyone that could see through her, it would be him. He wasn't comfortable with the fact that she wanted photos, but he wanted photos too, so he was facing an odd conundrum.

As with most things related to his little twin sister, he rolled with it.

He turned to the mirror and ran a tiny hand through his fluffy mess, and then nodded bracingly, his cheeks still as red as they were before, and headed out the door with as much dignity as he could possibly muster.

Nadeshiko was still red in the face from giggling and only just managed to grab his hand before he tripped on the second step and plummeted to his untimely death.

" _Mio cucciolo, all grown up! I'm so proud!"_ she exclaimed indulgently, wiping away imaginary tears.

Tsuna was fairly certain she was mocking him, but he was far too nervous and excited to call her out on it.

He squeezed her hand with his own, and she squeezed back in moral support, even though she was smiling at him with that uniquely sardonic tilt of her head.

Che.

They toddled onto the back porch, Tsuna swallowing nervously and gripping onto Nadeshiko's hand tightly.

She gave him a kiss on his forehead and whispered, " _Tsuna, you're wonderful. You have nothing to worry about."_

And just like that, Tsuna stood a fraction of an inch taller and the redness of his face mellowed to a pink glow on his cheeks, and he smiled widely.

Kyoko was standing at the other end of the back garden, waving cheerfully at Tsuna, a profusely crying Ryohei screaming about being "unprepared for this!"

Nadeshiko rolled her eyes at his idiocy (he was the one that made this happen in the first place!) and toddled to the pink shawl mama had laid on the grass to act as the aisle where the bride and groom walked on to reach the 'priest', who in this case was Ryohei's father, Sasagawa Ryouta.

Tsuna grinned brightly at Kyoko, who gave him a shy wave and smile back.

She was dressed in a pretty pink poofy mini-gown, her lace white socked feet clad in white Mary Janes and chin length golden brown hair decorated with a flower-covered pink hairband. Kyoko looked undeniably adorable, in Nadeshiko's objective opinion, and the small bouquet of plastic pink and white roses made her look ten times more so.

"Tsuna-kun…" she mumbled shyly, eyes peeking at him from time to time through her fringe.

The groom was in a mini-tuxedo, and when Nadeshiko saw them together, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Tsuna would never live this down in the future.

She had to remember to nick one of the photos mama was furiously clicking away.

"Kyoko-chan…" he replied, the butterflies in his stomach reappearing with a vengeance.

"NADE! THE BABIES ARE LEAVING THE NEST! THEY'RE FLYING AWAY NADE!" Ryohei screamed, tears streaming down his face like a torrential waterfall.

Nadeshiko patted him on the head with a blank expression, and with an equally monotone voice, said, "There there baka, there there."

* * *

Kaoru giggled at the display of friendship between her son and the Sawada daughter. Her son was wearing something quite similar to the Sawada boy, and the girl her son affectionately called 'NADE!' wore a sunny yellow frock with artificial sapphire accessories. Her shoulder-length hair was braided to the side, with a pretty sapphire hair brooch sweeping her bangs to the left tastefully. The brooch, more than anything else, clued her into the fact that the Sawada family, for all that they seemed middle-class, was actually quite rich.

She shook her head of these thoughts, gently reminding herself that wealth shouldn't matter, especially when it came to her children's friendships.

Although there was a niggling thought at the back of her mind, whenever she recalled the patriarch of the Sawada family…

Iemitsu was a foreigner, or at least had foreign blood—that much was obvious to anyone who saw him, what with his naturally blond hair and orangey brown eyes, eyes that both his children had inherited.

Iemitsu was, as he'd happily informed them, a construction worker. He certainly had the muscles and general slovenly behaviour to give credence to his assertion, but the _places_ he'd been to 'for work' were far too exotic. Kaoru hadn't been the best at geography at school, so she couldn't say for sure, but some of the places…

Why would you need to regulate traffic at construction sites in Antarctica?

There was something fishy about the Sawada family, but…

Nana was a very nice woman, if a bit talkative, and Kaoru valued their friendship too much to break it (and their children's) over half-baked suspicions.

Besides, if there _was_ anything weird going on, Hibari-sama would have dealt with it.

As simple as.

With that thought, Kaoru smiled indulgently as her beloved husband read out the fake sermons. The look of concentration on his face was endearing, and even though he looked quite frightening to most people, with his strong jaw and broody eyebrows (both of which her son had inherited, although to a milder extent), to Kaoru, he was the most handsome man she had ever met.

"Do you take Tsunayoshi-kun to be your…" he said, rubbing the tears out of his eyes as he said the words. He then gave her a look of abject despair and cried, "Kaoru! I can't! My baby can't get married yet!"

Kaoru giggled good-naturedly, walking over to him with a fond smile and whispering in his ear, "Anata, they're just children. They aren't _really_ getting married, just like you're not _really_ a priest."

He sniffled in the manliest fashion he could and exclaimed, "BUT IT FEELS REAL! KYOKO-CHAN, BOYS ARE ALL EVIL!"

Kyoko looked at her father with wide sad eyes and said, "Bu' Tsuna-kun is my boyfriend!"

Ryouta picked her up and moved her away from Tsuna, who at this point was blushing brightly in embarrassment. "No! My daughter is pure and innocent, like snow! Kyoko-chan, you can't have boyfriends until you're fifty, and even then, only because Kaoru wants grandchildren, okay!?"

He looked sort of demented and sort of hysterical, and Kyoko was kind of terrified. Tsuna looked crestfallen and Nana looked startled. Kaoru felt embarrassed and Ryohei looked half vindicated and half indignant, seeing as it _was_ his idea.

Nadeshiko burst into laughter, prompting the neighbour's Chihuahua to start yipping in tandem, falling onto the floor and getting grass stains on her frock. Tears started streaming down her face with the force of her laughs, and soon enough, Ryohei joined her, both of them laughing like a pair of hyenas gone mad.

Kyoko giggled at the sight, and Tsuna shook his head in fond childish exasperation, patting his twin on the head to get her to calm down.

Nana took a photo of the scene, and Kaoru decided that the situation had been salvaged and her husband's daughter complex hadn't ruined a perfectly nice day.

All was well.

* * *

 _What did you think of this chapter?_

 _Sorella - sister, fratello - brother, mia patatina - my little potato (term of endearment for babies), mio cucciolo - my puppy (term of endearment for babies)._

 _How were Ryouta and Kaoru's characterisations? How were Nadeshiko and Ryohei? Tsuna and Kyoko definitely won't remember this in the future, because they're only two and a bit at this point, and Ryohei has terrible memory so he won't remember it, so it's just the adults and Nadeshiko._

 _Also, to the guest that's worried about Nana's mental health - now that you mention it, yeah, it does seem scarily like dementia, but Nana was just missing him because he missed their first anniversary, though that probably won't/didn't come out in the story..._

 _Sorry! :)_


	15. The Jealousy Story

**Something Simple**

 _ **'**_ _Jealousy is a disease. Get well soon.'_

* * *

Sawada Nadeshiko woke up one fine morning to the sun shining in her eyes and drool crusting her pillow—Tsuna's right knee.

She blinked twice, stretched leisurely, muttered something like a prayer in Italian, and ruffled Tsuna's hair to wake him up. He muttered in his sleep, then blinked and mumbled the same prayer in Japanese.

The twins then proceeded to do their morning ritual, as per usual.

The only difference, of course, was that their mother was nowhere to be found.

Tsuna and Nadeshiko toddled down the stairs as carefully as humanly possible, and then made their way to the kitchen, only to find it bereft of any comforting motherly presence. Tsuna's lips started tremble and his eyes started to water immediately.

Nadeshiko, noticing this, patted his fluffy brown hair to calm him down. " _Don't worry mio cucciolo. Mama will be back soon."_

With that said, she gave him a few moments to compose himself before toddling over to the fridge, intent on finding something for breakfast.

"What are you doing Nade?" Tsuna asked with a sniffle.

She waved him over, pulling out a milk carton. _"I can't reach the upper shelves. We'll just have to make do with some milk until mama gets home."_

Tsuna nodded, and together the two siblings managed to only splash a minor amount of milk onto the floor in their quest to calm their hunger.

With that, Tsuna began wringing his hands in adorable anxiety and Nade motioned for him to follow her into the living room. Once there, she grabbed one of the picture books from the table and shoved it into Tsuna's hands.

" _Tell me a story."_

Tsuna blinked at the book in his hands, worry forgotten in the wake of this unreasonable request. "Nade, I can't read."

" _Make something up then."_

Her dismissive attitude to the technical difficulties of this request made Tsuna sigh and decide to just go with the flow.

He went to the sofa and climbed on, pulling Nade up with him.

Once the two of them were snuggly sitting side by side, Tsuna opened the book to the first page, a picture of a shark prominently displayed. It was snapping at a green toad perched on a rock, and a seagull was flying overhead.

Tsuna pouted in concentration, trying to come up with a story without much success.

Nadeshiko quietly waited for him to get on with it, but after an entire five minutes trickled by with no signs of her brother managing to string a sentence together, she gave him a little prompt.

" _Mr Toad was having a very bad day. He was just minding his own business when the seagull invaded his peace, cawing very loudly."_

She then looked at him expectantly, waiting to see how he would continue. Tsuna took a while to translate the sentence in his head, before saying, "Toad-san was coming home from work, and mama toad had given him a packed lunch, but Shark-san ate it. Toad-san wasn't happy."

Tsuna looked insurmountably proud with his story, and Nadeshiko giggled, running a hand through his hair the way an indulgent mother would. Unfortunately, considering she was younger than him, it just looked condescending.

Luckily, Tsuna wasn't aware of this.

He flipped to the next page, which had a glowing treasure chest. Nadeshiko dearly wished she could read the hiragana describing the picture, but even if she could, it was very unlikely she could make sense of it.

Tsuna frowned at the page, before squealing in excitement. "The packed lunch was gold coins, because mama toad forgot that mustard and money are two different things! So Shark-san had to be hungry all day!"

He then happily flipped onto the next page and once again frowned in thought, wondering how the squirrel and toad looking worried could fit in his wonderful story.

"Then, Toad-san went to complain to his little sister, Squirrel-chan." he said, nodding decisively, flipping onto the next page.

Nadeshiko snuggled deeper into her brother's side, content to listen to the simple Japanese words and memorise them, all the while glad that Tsuna's imagination finally had an outlet.

He pointed at the treasure chest in the picture gravely, intoning, "But the mustard was icky, so no one cared."

As he moved to the next page, which had a happy toad jumping in joy and the treasure chest on an island, Tsuna decided that maybe he'd gone a bit off topic. However, unwilling to allow things such as plot progression to hinder his genius, he decided to change his story halfway through.

"The mustard was actually sugar," he explained nonchalantly, as though reprimanding Nadeshiko for thinking otherwise. "So Toad-san ate too much, and now mama toad will be angry."

He flipped the page once more and a picture with an angry shark, triumphant toad decked out in golden finery and a smiling squirrel greeted him.

"The sister Squirrel-chan was happy that Shark-san had given them back the sugar, and Shark-san married Squirrel-chan because Toad-san was going to be killed by the angry gypsy king!"

He excitedly turned to the next page, wondering how the story would end.

A picture of the shark swimming away and the squirrel and toad holding hands splashed across the page.

"But Shark-san," Tsuna said wisely, "had to go to work, so Squirrel-chan had to wait for a while before they could have…shirrel babies. The end!"

He beamed at Nadeshiko, who dutifully began clapping and whistling in excitement.

" _What a wonderful story fratello! How about another one?"_ she asked, already getting up to get another one.

Tsuna happily helped her back up, eager to begin the next story, completely forgetting his worry over where his mama was.

Nadeshiko kept an ear out for the door, just in case, as Tsuna began a tale about angry beavers and happy swans, who just happened to have a contract with the devil because they'd eaten his spaghetti.

* * *

It was eleven by the time Tsuna began worrying again, and Nadeshiko realised she would be late for kendo practise if she didn't begin getting ready now.

However, she hesitated and stalled as long as possible, not eager to leave Tsuna on his own.

Just as she was about to suggest getting another book, they heard the sound of the door opening and male voices talking in low voices.

Tsuna squeaked in fright, unused to hearing male voices in the house—the closest to a male they entertained was Tsuyoshi-san, and the person at the door most _certainly_ wasn't Tsuyoshi-san.

"Nade, Tsuna!" a voice called out, loud and booming.

Immediately, Nadeshiko's face broke into a wide smile and she laughed in excitement, running to the door.

Tsuna, startled, followed closely behind, nearly tripping on the rug in the hall.

At the door, a blond man stood tall and steady, a smirky grin on his face, wearing an expensive suit and clutching an expensive suitcase. He was escorting an older man with a grandfatherly smile and red floral shirt into the house.

Nadeshiko tackled the blond man's leg into an excited hug, exclaiming, " _Welcome home papa!"_

It took Tsuna a while to remember this man, and then even he smiled, although far more nervously and apprehensively. After all, he barely remembered papa, and the man next to him wasn't like Tsuna or mama or Nade, or even papa.

He had olive skin and a moustache, and Tsuna just wasn't used to these sorts of things.

" _How's my patatina doing?"_ Papa asked, lifting Nadeshiko into his arms with a laugh.

Nadeshiko giggled, almost giddy at having him home. _"Tsuna's been telling me stories all day, and they were all very good! I've had lots of fun!"_

Iemitsu grinned and looked at his nervously blushing son, reaching out a hand to him. "And how are you Tsuna? Did you miss papa?"

Tsuna nodded jerkily, still wary of the old man.

Nadeshiko gave him a reassuring smile. _"Tsuna, papa wants a hug."_

Tsuna blushed, before timidly toddling over to his papa, wondering how he was going to hug him, when he wrapped an arm around Tsuna and lifted him into the air.

Holding both his children, one smiling widely and one startled into silence, Iemitsu could almost forget the last mission he'd been on.

He turned to his boss, giving him a respectful look and saying formally, " _Sir, these are my children. Introduce yourself, mia patatina."_

He put her down and she didn't disappoint, giving the old man a curtsy and saying, _"Welcome to the Sawada household sir. My name is_ Swa-Sa… _Nade."_

The old man chuckled, placing a hand on her head gently and saying, _"It's a pleasure to meet you, Nade."_

She smiled at him, a little wariness creeping into her stance.

Tsuna immediately registered this and began squirming in Iemitsu's hold.

"My name is Tsuna!" he blurted out loudly, desperately trying to get the attention off of Nadeshiko—he didn't like it when his sister was uncomfortable.

As soon as the old man turned to him, Tsuna flushed a bright red, embarrassment and nerves doing a number on his intestines.

The old man placed a warm hand on Tsuna's head as well, and the little boy looked up. When his wide orangey-brown eyes met the old man's calm and reassuring brown eyes, Tsuna relaxed instantly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Tsuna." he said in accented Japanese, the way Nadeshiko spoke when attempting Tsuna's native tongue.

"Are you _Italiano?_ " Tsuna asked curiously.

Iemitsu's eyes widened in surprise, and the old man looked at Tsuna with equally curious eyes. "Yes I am. Do you know Italian Tsuna?"

Tsuna looked at Nadeshiko, before nodding at her calm disposition.

" _What's your name sir?"_ he asked, his nervousness easily sluicing off him now that he'd seen the old man's eyes and knew there was nothing to worry about.

" _My name is Timoteo. You can call me nonno."_ he said indulgently, a pleased smile on his face.

To Iemitsu, he asked, " _You've taught both your children Italian?"_

Iemitsu looked at both the twins, before nodding. " _Not intentionally, of course. But they're both incredibly intelligent."_

" _We can expect great things from them then."_

Tsuna hadn't understood some of the words, but his papa's proud smile and Timoteo's warm aura reassured him that nothing bad was being said.

Nadeshiko tilted her head in confusion. _"You are our nonno?"_

Iemitsu tensed imperceptibly, while Timoteo took it in stride. _"Not directly, but we are related ragazzina."_

Nadeshiko looked satisfied, and then abruptly turned around and headed up the stairs.

Iemitsu called out a confused, " _Where are you going?"_

Nadeshiko waved for him to hold all questions for later, and Tsuna decided to fill in for Nade. "She's going to get ready for her kendo lesson."

Before either papa or nonno could comment, mama walked through the door.

"Ara, anata!" she exclaimed happily. "You came home earlier than you told me! I was out grocery shopping and—maa, Tsu-kun, have you been awake long?"

Tsuna nodded, relieved that mama was back home—the last three hours had been nerve-wracking, even though he'd forgotten about her absence completely for most of it.

"I'm sorry Tsu-kun." Mama apologised. "I thought you two would sleep in, so I told the neighbour to keep watch and—anata, is this your boss you told me about?"

Iemitsu nodded, but before anything more could be said, yet another person had reached the door.

"Nana-san, is Nadeshiko-chan ready?" Tsuyoshi asked, just as he always did every Thursday at eleven o'clock.

"Ah! Tsu-kun, where's Na-chan?" she asked.

"She's changing Tsuyoshi-san!" Tsuna said immediately.

"Who's this Nana?" asked Iemitsu, a hint of jealousy colouring his tone.

He was sizing up the TakeSushi owner, while Tsuyoshi simply gave him a disarming smile.

"Anata," Nana said, oblivious to the tension crackling between the two men. "This is Yamamoto Tsuyoshi-san. He runs a sushi restaurant and picks up and drops Na-chan to and from the kendo dojo, which is very kind of him, ne? Tsuyoshi-san, this is my husband, Iemitsu."

Iemitsu placed an obliviously cheerful grin on his face and nodded at Tsuyoshi. "It's nice to meet you Yamamoto-san! My Nade talks a lot about you."

* * *

Tsuyoshi gave a polite bow to the clearly foreign man that couldn't be anyone but the twins' father, judging by his eye colour. For some reason, the man rubbed him the wrong way, and Tsuyoshi didn't quite like the vibes he was getting from him.

"Really? Haha, I've never heard Nadeshiko-chan mention you!" he said, the same jovial, unthreatening grin in place.

Sawada Iemitsu's grin lost some of its cheer. "Is that right?"

Tsuna, held by his father, became nervous again, the tension making him want to burrow himself back into their crib.

Tsuyoshi didn't have to reply to that, because Nadeshiko chose that moment to descend the stairs.

"I am prepared for battle Tsuyoshi-san. Let us depart post-haste." she said carefully, before nodding to herself to confirm the rightness of her words.

Tsuyoshi gave her a smile—at least her meaning was correct, even if her word usage was archaic and could use a _lot_ of work. "Let's go then!"

Nadeshiko shot her brother a smile, which he returned just as brightly, waved to her mama goodbye, gave a polite bow to the observing old foreign man standing a bit further inside the house, and yelled a hasty " _Ciao ciao papa_!" behind her without looking back before grabbing Tsuyoshi-san's hand like she did every day and followed him out of the driveway into the street.

"Bye bye Na-chan! And Tsuyoshi-san, don't forget what we talked about!" called out Nana, and Tsuyoshi gave a quick thumbs up.

Iemitsu looked like he'd been punched in the gut.

Tsuyoshi—

While he could _sympathise…_

He looked down at the calm little girl bobbing gracefully next to him, comfortably walking alongside him and trustingly placing her tiny pale hand in his large rough tanned hand, who smiled pleasantly at him when she noticed him staring at her, and decided that, you know what?

He didn't care.

Iemitsu wasn't really home all that much, and while he felt bad for encroaching on his spot in Nadeshiko's life, he didn't feel _that_ bad that he'd start distancing himself from her.

In fact, he felt just that little bit smug.

"So that was your papa? You don't talk about him much." he asked.

She nodded. "He's really nice, isn't he?"

Tsuyoshi grinned. "Mhmm. He seems like somebody fun to push around actually…" he muttered, almost to himself.

Nadeshiko giggled, having heard him. "Tsuna gets it from papa. But Tsuyoshi-san, don't be too mean. The hamster warlock doesn't appreciate it."

He ruffled her hair. "If you say so Nadeshiko-chan!"

So he'd gotten attached to the little girl. So what?

He'd always wanted a daughter…

* * *

 _Ragazzina - little girl, patatina - little potato (Italian term of endearment)._

 _I love Tsuyoshi…but it was inevitable that there would be that kind of clash between Nadeshiko's two father figures. Don't worry though—not too much drama, I promise. The next chapter should be a nice resolution. Timoteo will also have more of a proper introduction next chapter!_

 _And Nana didn't abandon them—they usually sleep till 10 unless someone wakes them up, but today they managed to wake up at 8. Not her fault she didn't anticipate that…_

 _I feel sort of bad for Iemitsu…oh well!_

 _And anyone wanting to guess what Nana and Tsuyoshi 'talked about'? What did you think about Tsuna's story? And Tsuyoshi and Nadeshiko's budding relationship? And before anyone asks, weird as it might be, this is NOT a TsuyoshiXNade story. I mean, it wasn't the first thing that came to mind, but I'm sure it would for some people._

 _Or maybe that's just me...I figured I'd cover all the bases though, just in case._


	16. The Tuna Birthday

**Something Simple**

 _'I love how we all know that I'm your favourite child.'_

* * *

Tsuna watched his mama cheerfully greet _nonno_ —he didn't know whether that meant ninth or grandfather, but something told him that both meanings were applicable—and then become all lovey-dovey with papa, waves of fond affection emanating from the couple.

"Let's leave your parents to get reacquainted, Tsuna-chan." nonno suggested, and as Tsuna was already going red from second-hand embarrassment, he agreed almost too quickly.

He toddled his way to the living room, taking care to point out all the tripping hazards to nonno, because if _he_ tripped, it was alright, but if such an old man tripped, he might crack like Humpty-Dumpty, and Tsuna wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility, thank you very much.

Tsuna led nonno to the sofa and said, as politely as possible, "Sit down."

Nonno happily complied, a soft look in his eyes as Tsuna fussed over his comfort—he went to the storage cupboard and brought a light blanket for the old man, and then he asked him whether he wanted anything to read, and then he asked him whether he wanted a stool for his feet, and then he went to get some foot cream so that he could massage nonno's feet.

"Tsuna-chan," said nonno, unused to this kind of deferential treatment from a toddler. "You don't have to go that far. Please, come sit here."

He patted the cushion next to him, and Tsuna faced a major dilemma. Nade had instilled in him a deep, intrinsic respect for the elderly, to the point where it felt _wrong_ to treat them as even remote equals, but then, nonno was asking him to do something, and wouldn't it be disrespectful not to listen?

Tsuna fluttered between the foot cream and the sofa indecisively, by which point papa had made his way into the living room as well.

"Your son has excellent manners, Iemitsu," commented nonno, to which Tsuna blushed in shy pleasure. "Reminds me of…well, my wife actually…"

Tsuna tilted his head curiously as papa let out a chuckle. "Nonna? I act like nonna?"

Iemitsu paused for a fraction of a second in surprise, before continuing as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Nonno nodded in sad fondness. "When she was younger…ah, but you're a man Tsuna-chan, and times have changed. You don't need to go that far for an old man like me."

The kindly smile on nonno's face made Tsuna feel inexplicably sad, in a way that he didn't think was possible. He said, as guilelessly as a newborn lamb, "Times change, but manners don't, nonno. And girl or boy, _devi rispettare chi è più anziano di te_."

Tsuna nodded decisively at his words, glad that he'd remembered word-for-word what Nade had said.

Nonno became misty-eyed at this pronouncement. "Your mother taught you that?"

Tsuna shook his head. " _Mia sorella_ did."

Iemitsu nodded, as though this didn't surprise him one bit. "Yeah, Nade has a lot of traditional values, but for some reason, she's a bit disrespectful."

He shook his head in fondness, and Tsuna couldn't help but agree with that statement—Nade _did_ leave conversations hanging as soon as she lost interest in them, without a care for how rude it was. It was like she ran on her own time, and Nadeland had its own set times for things that was absolutely inflexible for things such as manners and convention.

Still, Nade wasn't _rude_ —most people just thought that she was spacy—and Tsuna knew this.

Iemitsu ruffled Tsuna's hair in affection, and perhaps in another world, where Nadeshiko didn't constantly remind him of what papa had done, or how much papa loved them, Tsuna would have recoiled or started, or maybe begun building resentment for the blond man.

But that wasn't the case, and Tsuna savoured the physical proof of affection without any of the unnecessary baggage.

After all, if his little sister thought that it was normal for a father to only be home three months a year, who was he to argue? It's not like _he_ knew any better.

"I look forward to meeting her properly then. A girl like that…ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself." said nonno amiably, with a hint of curiosity.

Tsuna couldn't help but feel a sense of impending doom, and he tried to shake it off.

Mama came in next, cheerfully chirping, "Ne, Tsu-kun, take grandpa outside. It's a nice day, and a nice fresh breeze will shake off that jetlag as well!"

Tsuna looked at her in wide-eyed horror. "But nonno could blow away!"

Iemitsu burst into laughter. "It's okay Tsuna! Boss is far sturdier than you think. He's not _that_ fragile!"

Nonno nodded, as if confirming that ought to settle Tsuna's burgeoning worries.

Silly people, thinking that Tsuna's fears would be quelled with something that half-hearted…

* * *

Nadeshiko retied her hair as she waited for Tsuyoshi-san to come collect her from the dojo at three in the evening, contemplating the state of affairs.

This _nonno_ seemed mostly harmless, but she couldn't shake off the unreasonable fear she had of him. He reminded her of days on the run, guns peaking from coat pockets, her previous father's _dangerous_ 'clients'…

And yet, a large part of her felt that he wasn't a threat to her.

She didn't really know what to believe—it was the first time since being reborn that her instincts were at war with her past experiences. It was an…interesting experience, to say the least.

"How was kendo practise today, Nadeshiko-chan?"

Nadeshiko snapped out of her thoughts, something she'd had to do multiple times during the lesson itself—a testament to how much the meeting with her new nonno had jarred her.

Usually, the prospect of whacking someone with a large stick absorbed her completely.

"It was perfectly adequate, this one thought. How were the patrons for thee?" she asked, and judging by the way Tsuyoshi-san tried to hold in his laughter, she may have used some wrong words to convey her meaning.

 _I have to try harder,_ she thought with renewed vigour.

She then curiously eyed the rather conspicuously large bag in Tsuyoshi-san's hand. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Ah, it's a surprise!" he said, a carefree grin on his face.

Choosing not to comment, Nadeshiko instead deduced that, judging by the sugary-bakery scent of the packaging, and the shape of the bag, that it was a cake.

Why he had a cake was up for debate, but considering he was taking it along with her, mama must have asked for it, although for what was questionable.

Maybe to celebrate papa's return? In which case, she'd need to inspect the cake for any signs of tampering—Tsuyoshi-san seemed to have revealed his sadistic side when it came to papa, and Nadeshiko wasn't very keen to have any 'harmless pranks' ruin her papa's homecoming.

 _I wonder if it's papa's birthday today…_

* * *

Sasagawa Ryohei was running far ahead of his parents and little sister, knowing as he did that they just weren't putting their all into reaching the Sawada household fast enough.

A face-splitting grin and glinting grey eyes completed the picture of a light-haired child running full-pelt around the block. His parents' exasperation couldn't dampen his spirits even one iota! He was going to get there before Nade, even if it killed him!

Skidding to a stop just outside their gate, Ryohei looked left and right, only to find out that Nade was already at the door.

"No, NADE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, barrelling across the driveway and smashing into her.

"Ryo-chan~!" she cooed, a hint of danger in her tone.

Ryohei didn't notice this of course, because he jumped up and exclaimed excitedly, "My hand was inside the house first! I WIN!"

Nade's left eye twitched, but Ryohei was sure that it would go away soon. "Get your eye tested NADE!"

He thought that was an extremely helpful piece of advice, but for some strange reason, Nade started yelling at him. "Are you an _idiota_!? What did you win, huh!?"

"The race, obviously." he said, tilting his head in a pitying gaze that made Nadeshiko want to smash his face in. "Didn't you know?"

Her left eye twitched in irritation again, and she whipped out her shinai and smashed it against his head.

"OW NADE! PUT THE STICK AWAY NADE!" he yelled, running into the house as she chased after him.

" _When I get my hands on you, you mule-brained turf-head, sei morto!"_ she yelled, her high-pitched voice making him wince.

"NADE, YOUR VOICE IS SQUEAKY!" he yelled, thinking he was being helpful.

"ARGH!" she screamed, whacking him with her shinai again. " _I'll show you squeaky!"_

Tsuna came into view as Ryohei crashed through to the living room, his hands raised to placate his twin sister. "Nade, calm down! Nonno could get a heart attack!"

Both Ryohei and Nadeshiko screeched to a halt.

"What?" they both asked in synchronisation.

A hearty laugh came from the right corner, and all three children turned to see an old man cosily wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa with a cup of tea warming his hands, wearing a pleated maroon sweater and a snow cap.

Instantly, Ryohei exclaimed, "A MUMMY NADE, A REAL MUMMY!"

Without moving her eyes away from the old man, Nadeshiko absentmindedly whacked Ryohei on the head again.

" _Nonno, it isn't that cold…"_

He smiled indulgently. "Tsuna-chan seems to think I'll die of frostbite if I'm not careful."

Tsuna nodded. "Nade, we can't be too careful. He's fragile."

Nadeshiko ruffled his hair fondly. _"Tsuna, you never cease to amaze me."_

She gave nonno a bow and excused herself to go change, glaring at Ryohei and biting out, "Don't cause trouble, _idiota_."

Ryohei didn't know what _idiota_ meant, but he thought it was a nice nickname, so he nodded excitedly.

Nade was so nice.

"You're not a mummy?" he asked the old man in disappointment.

His lips twitched upwards. "I'm afraid not, Ryo was it?"

With extreme enthusiasm, he loudly said, "I am Sasagawa Ryohei, four years old, future boxing world champion!"

Tsuna shushed him, so he lowered his volume. "Nonno's ears are fragile!"

Ryohei scratched his head. "IF YOU SAY SO!" he exclaimed, giving Tsuna a thumbs up.

The doorbell rang just then, and Tsuna's mama went to open it with a cheerful hum. "Ara, Kaoru-san, Ryouta-san, Kyoko-chan! Come in, come in! So glad you could make it!"

One after the other, the rest of the Sasagawa family walked and toddled into the room, followed by Sawada Nana.

"This is anata's boss, Timoteo-san! Timoteo-san, this is the Sasagawa family."

When all the introductions were concluded, Nade walked back in, and Ryohei's eyes sparkled. "NADE, I DIDN'T CAUSE ANY TROUBLE!"

She looked at him as though he was an incredibly boring species of dung beetle and nodded. "Well done, _idiota."_

Ryohei beamed in happiness.

Nonno bit back a laugh at the pleased look on Ryohei's face, and by this time, Iemitsu returned from putting his stuff away in the guest room.

"Ah, Ryouta-san, Kaoru-san, long time no see!" he said, greeting them in his comfortable full-sleeved shirt and khaki pants.

With those greetings underway, barely anyone noticed Nadeshiko slipping away to the kitchen.

Tsuna followed her curiously, and nonno's own curiosity was sparked.

"Nade, where're you going?" Tsuna asked, tripping and face-planting onto the floor.

She helped him with a nonchalant expression and then said, "Tsuyoshi-san has cake."

Tsuna tilted his head in confusion. "Is it nonno's birthday?"

Nadeshiko shrugged, plodding to the kitchen with her hand holding Tsuna's.

They heard voices from the kitchen that made them pause at the doorway, Tsuna because he didn't want to interrupt, and Nadeshiko because she wanted to eavesdrop.

"It was very kind of you, Tsuyoshi-san." mama's voice said gratefully.

"It was no trouble at all Nana, but I'm afraid I can't stay. Already, I've spent too much time here, and the restaurant isn't going to run itself." Tsuyoshi said with a carefree laugh.

Nana thanked him again and promised to "send him a slice", and then Tsuyoshi was walking out of the kitchen and spotted both the twins eyeing him in curiosity. He chuckled and ruffled both their heads of hair.

"Eavesdropping is bad manners!" he exclaimed, not looking miffed at all.

Nadeshiko gave an unrepentant shrug, while Tsuna began stuttering out that that's not what he was doing at all.

Tsuyoshi duly noted that he said "he" wasn't eavesdropping, not "we".

Looks like Tsuna had known, and simply hadn't stopped his sister from doing something he knew wasn't okay.

"Well, I hope you both have fun today!" he said, taking his leave.

Nadeshiko bowed. "Thank ye for thy services."

Tsuna hastily copied her. " _Grazie."_

Tsuyoshi left the Sawada household with a smile on his face.

* * *

A few other people came to the house—Komodo-san from next door, the elderly neighbour from two doors down—and then Iemitsu popped a popper behind Tsuna's head, startling him right into nonno's lap.

That seemed to be the signal, because Kaoru-san drew the curtains closed and Ryouta-san held two flashlights, illuminating both the exasperated-with-Ryohei's-stupidity Nadeshiko and the startled-to-tears-but-trying-to-be-manly Tsuna, just as Nana entered the living room holding a birthday cake with three candles.

In unison, everyone but the twins began singing, "Happy Birthday to you~!"

Ryohei was trying for heavy metal, Kyoko's rendition was breathy and broken—considering she didn't know the words, she did a pretty good job, all things considered—and nonno was singing in Italian, so the entire experience made Tsuna want to die of embarrassment and cover his ears.

The entire thing was so dissonant that even _Nana_ noticed, and she was as oblivious as they came.

It didn't help that Iemitsu kept bursting into intermittent laugh every third word because of Tsuna's adorably reddening face, and Nana adamantly refused to, for some bizarre reason, shorten her twins' name like she did every day and insisted on singing, "Tsunayoshi and Nadeshiko~!"

Finally, when the song was over, Ryohei began screaming, "NADE, TSUNA, CUT THE CAKE!"

Tsuna was handed a knife by a smiling Iemitsu, and he shyly turned to where the flashlight was still illuminating Nadeshiko so that they could hold the knife together.

Nadeshiko looked frozen in place, and had been the entire song.

Kyoko, the person closest to Nadeshiko, asked in childish concern, "Na-nee-chan?"

Immediately, the tears fell from her ears as she laughed, as though a large weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

It was the first time in her life that _anyone_ had bothered to care for her birthday, the last two in this life having been forgotten because Nana just didn't remember these kinds of things and Iemitsu hadn't been home.

Her previous life was—

It was better not to think about then.

She glomped Kyoko in a tearful hug, and then proceeded to hug everyone in the room, unable to express with her limited vocabulary just how much this meant to her.

Nana and Iemitsu returned her hug with heartfelt confusion, Ryouta looked unbearably uncomfortable with the usually stoic and sophisticated girl crying, laughing and hugging him at the same time, Kaoru just looked exceedingly confused just like her daughter, nonno returned her hug with a surprised eye-widening and a warmth-of-the-sky-flame-variety, and Ryohei hugged her back excitedly, not having a single clue as to why she was crying and laughing, but copying her anyway, twin rivers streaming down his face and boisterous laughter mingling with her own.

She reached Tsuna last, the only person in the room who just took her out-of-character behaviour with an understanding smile.

She grabbed the knife handle and together, both the twins blew out the candles and cut the cake, to the claps of everyone in the room.

Nadeshiko carefully picked up a slice of the triple-layered chocolate cake, with white curly icing that spelt out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TSUNA AND NADE" in easy-to-read hiragana, and held it out for Tsuna to take a bite, while Tsuna, seeing her doing so and believing this to be some standard ritual that he'd never heard about, quickly grabbed a huge chunk of the chocolate cake and shoved it in Nadeshiko's mouth.

Ryohei laughed uproaringly at Nadeshiko's murderous expression and Tsuna's horrified squeak, grabbing a fistful of the cake and shoving it in Kyoko's mouth.

Nadeshiko quelled her irritation at Tsuna, asking him to " _take a bite already!"_

When he did so, she wiped her hand on his hoodie unrepentantly.

"Nade! Why did you do that?" he squawked, looking mournfully at his chocolate-covered favourite hoodie.

She gave him an evilly sweet smile, the chocolate icing on her face looking like dried blood in the darkness. " _Revenge is sweet."_

Nonno chuckled behind Tsuna, and Tsuna turned red in embarrassment again. Most of the people in the room hadn't understood that, but that was alright.

Nana clapped to get everyone's attention. "Present time!" she exclaimed, more excited about the presents than either one of her children—Tsuna because he was still suffering humiliation and Nadeshiko because she was already twenty-four.

In fact, Ryohei, his mouth covered in chocolate because he'd shoved some cake into _his own_ mouth in excitement, was more pumped up about this than either one of the actual present receivers.

"NADE, presents! Come on! I picked it out, and you'll LOVE IT!" he yelled, diving into the pile of presents in the corner that both twins only just noticed.

They toddled towards it, the adults crowding around them, Nana holding her camera out, ready to capture the delightful expressions she was sure they were going to make.

There was a present for each of them from papa, mama, nonno, Komodo-san, the elderly neighbour, Ryohei-and-Kyoko, and Kaoru-and-Ryouta.

They both decided to open papa's present first, Nadeshiko's wrapped in silver and Tsuna's wrapped in golden paper.

Nadeshiko gave into the urge and ripped away at the wrapping paper and found a beautiful golden chained bracelet with a tiny potato charm sparkling in the shadowy dark.

Someone drew the curtains open and she turned to see Tsuna's present, biting back a laugh at his stricken expression.

"They're tuna crackers! Novelty gift!" Iemitsu exclaimed, and suddenly, everyone in the room looked shifty-eyed.

Tsuna mustered a smile and turned to see Nadeshiko's well-thought-out present.

She ruffled his hair at his pout, thanking papa with a smile.

They opened nonno's present next, both wrapped in sparkly orange paper. Nadeshiko had received a many-shades-of-blue flower-patterned cloth-band for her hair, classically Italian and reminding her of home, while Tsuna had received a box of tuna-shaped crackers.

Tsuna grimaced, and then both of them smiled at nonno.

Tsuna hoped he got something different from the Sasagawa parents, but as he unwrapped the dark blue gift, he was thoroughly disappointed.

Nadeshiko had gotten a generic pink-dressed doll, and she'd given a polite smile to the adults and said thank you.

Tsuna wasn't feeling it, having gotten tuna crackers thrice in a row, so he moved onto mama's present.

Nadeshiko had gotten a sparkly plastic magic wand, which she decided to use immediately and whacked Ryohei's head with it with a sadistic grin on her face.

Tsuna absentmindedly wondered how many brain cells Ryohei could afford to lose, before excitedly opening his own present. He'd gotten…

A box of tuna crackers.

Again.

Tsuna cracked a painful smile at mama and thanked her in a strangled voice, and Nadeshiko couldn't stop giggling next to him.

Komodo-san had given Nadeshiko a pretty butterfly hairclip and the elderly neighbour had given her a pink plastic tea-making set.

Both Komodo-san and the elderly neighbour had given Tsuna a box of tuna-shaped crackers each.

Nadeshiko finally realised why all the adults had looked shifty-eyed.

They'd _all_ bought Tsuna the _same brand_ of tuna-shaped crackers.

They both reached out to open the last of their presents, the lumpy packaging making it evident that it was done by an amateur.

"I got Nade's present, and Kyoko got Tsuna's present!" Ryohei informed them cheerfully, oblivious to the problems Tsuna was going through.

He didn't even _like_ crackers.

Nadeshiko's present was wrapped in paper and, while she was sure the string should have been there to hold the thing together, it seemed that Ryohei had decided they were supposed to be used for decoration and had taped them onto the paper in interesting incomprehensible patterns. In fact, the entire thing had far too much tape on it, and she didn't even know where to _begin_ unwrapping it.

Tsuna's was a bit less slapdash, the orange construction paper trying valiantly to pretend to be actual wrapping paper, the cute smiley faces drawn on it showing just how much time Kyoko must have spent on it. She'd even written Tsuna's full name in kanji, and Tsuna decided that, even if the present inside turned out to be tuna-shaped crackers, the wrapping paper more than made up for it.

In fact, he'd have been happy if the wrapping paper itself was the present.

He carefully unwrapped it, while Nadeshiko tore into hers like a demon-possessed gremlin, to Ryohei's indignant exclamations.

"I hope you like it, Tsuna-kun." Kyoko said with a hopeful smile.

Tsuna sincerely hoped he did, blushing at the smile.

Inside, Kyoko had carefully folded a bright blue hoodie with a tuna fish printed on the front.

The tuna-fish made him want to cry, but he _did_ like hoodies, and this one was really nice, so he smiled sincerely for the first time since the present-opening torture session had begun, and gave Kyoko a hug.

"Thank you Kyoko-chan!" he said happily.

"You're welcome Tsuna-kun." she replied with a light blush on her cheeks.

Nadeshiko had finally excavated Ryohei's present, which had turned out to be a roll of bandages and training weights.

"Splinters aren't good! And the weights are there so that you train even at home to the extreme!" he explained, hopping around on one foot and then the other excitedly, perfectly sure she liked the present.

Nadeshiko couldn't help it—it was the most functional present she'd received, and _of course_ the only person who took her resolve to learn to fight seriously was the _idiota_ that was doing the same.

She gave him a pat on the head and whacked him on the head with her magic wand in gratitude.

Somehow, though nobody would ever understand how, Ryohei could distinguish between exasperated head whacking and grateful head whacking, and he attempted to give her a hug.

She shuffled out of his way and he slammed headfirst against the table-leg.

"NADE!" he yelled, immediately springing back from that, even though there was a potato-sized lump growing from the side of his head. "THE TABLE HAS CHALLENGED ME TO A MATCH NADE!"

Before the adults could react, Tsuna placed a hand on Ryohei's shoulder and told him, without even a stutter, "Ryo-nii-san, please don't."

Surprising to everyone but Nadeshiko and Kyoko, Ryohei complied, throwing a grimacing glare at the table. "We'll have the fight later!"

* * *

Thus the celebration continued, many a tasty treats eaten, many an embarrassing baby stories brought to light, many a tuna-shaped crackers thrown over the fence for the neighbour's Chihuahua to devour, many a lame joke uttered by Iemitsu and Ryouta, many a comparison made between Tsuna and Nadeshiko, and many a whack given to Ryohei's head by Nadeshiko.

Tsuna was glad when it was over.

Snuggling into bed at the end of the tiring but fun day, he gave Nadeshiko a sleepy kiss on the cheek.

" _Buona notte mia sorella."_ he mumbled sleepily, but then roused himself when he saw Nadeshiko quietly sniffling, curled up in a ball.

Sleep was beaten away by the wave of panicked concern that overtook him. "What's wrong?! Should I call mama or papa? Or nonno?"

Nadeshiko placed a calming hand on his head reflexively, not really conscious of what she was doing.

" _It's alright mio cucciolo. I'm just ridiculously grateful, and the feelings are too much for me to contain without crying, that's all."_

Tsuna pulled his little sister into a hug, asking, "What are you grateful about?"

" _I'd never known what it was like to feel so loved by others…and now I've got so many people, and I'm so_ happy _, Tsuna…because I've never been loved just for existing."_

Tsuna didn't understand fully, but he didn't need to.

He just needed to be there, and that's exactly what he was going to do.

" _Ti amo, sorella."_

"Thank you, Tsuna."

* * *

 _An EXTREMELY long chapter…with quite a bit of Italian as well._

 _devi rispettare chi è più anziano di te – you should respect your elders, sei morto! – you die!, grazie – thank you, idiota – idiot, ti amo – I love you, sorella – sister, buono notte – good night, mio cucciolo – my little puppy (term of endearment for children)_

 _Japanese vocabulary – shinai is the word for the kendo stick._

 _To answer someone's question, no, this isn't the trip that Timoteo seals Tsuna's flames, even in canon. What did you think of this chapter? Did you like the party? Notice how Tsuna speaks a mix of Italian and Japanese, even when talking to strictly Japanese-speaking people? Yeah, that's going to bite a bit in the near future…_

 _I hope everyone was in character! Review please? Oh, before I forget, Tsuyoshi is the reason Nana remembered it was the twins' birthday today, whereas she'd forgotten the previous two years. He also bought the cake. Iemitsu had planned this trip without knowing that Nana had forgotten the birthday, having worked overtime to make it in time for their third birthday. Also, Iemitsu didn't know what to buy for Nade, so he asked Oregano to buy something, while he'd gone out to buy Tsuna something himself. That's why there is such a huge difference between what Nade got and what Tsuna got from Iemitsu._

 _Also, you know that thing nonno was mumbling about in the first scene? Yeah, he was matchmaking in his head._


	17. The Tooth Snake

**Something Simple**

 _'Teeth are always in style.'_

* * *

Papa stayed for three entire weeks this time, and Tsuna was ecstatic.

Mama made feasts every day, nonno told him Italian folk tales, Nade didn't need as much translating now that the majority of the household spoke Italian, and the neighbour's Chihuahua had a new leash.

And so Tsuna's autumn weeks trickled by, filled with so much happiness he could _burst_. Even now, two weeks into their stay, Tsuna was grinning brighter than the noonday sun.

" _Fratello,_ if you keep smiling, _your face_ will freeze _like that_."

Tsuna's grin got wider as he turned to his sister, buried in their blankets and facing away from the sunlight streaming through the window. Nade had even begun mixing Italian and Japanese now, so mama could understand her better as well, and if this kept up, they might go to _preschool!_ Tsuna couldn't wait!

"We're going to Kokuyo Land today! I've never been to _an amusement park_ before _!_ " Tsuna squealed happily, hurriedly making his way out of the crib—that was getting far too cramped for them, honestly—and running to the bathroom.

Unfortunately, in his excitement, Tsuna had forgotten that there was a very good reason that he never usually ran around the house. He stumbled on his socks and crashed face first onto the bathroom tiles, knocking a tooth loose.

For a moment, he stared at his tooth in confusion, wondering whether he'd broken a tile and it had come loose. Then, when he looked down and noticed that the tiles were perfectly intact, his elbow cracked and he stared down at it in abject horror.

Panicking majorly, he hurriedly looked both ways and snatched the fallen tooth with the reflexes of a ninja, slipping it into his pyjama pocket. Tears of anxiety were already building in the corners of his eyes, but Tsuna couldn't let them fall—not now.

"Tsuna, are you okay?" Nadeshiko asked in mild concern, sidestepping his hunched over figure and reaching for the toothpaste.

"I'm fine!" Tsuna squeaked hurriedly, eager not to let his potentially _broken bone_ stop everyone from having fun.

It was the first time that papa and mama alone would take him and Nade somewhere outside, no nonno or Tsuyoshi-san or loud Ryo-nii tagging along. He wasn't prepared to be the reason that was cancelled, not when he got this feeling that this kind of thing would never happen again.

His little sister was oblivious to his inner turmoil, giving him his toothbrush nonchalantly, her own sticking out of her mouth casually.

Nade made _everything_ seem deadpanned. Tsuna was used to it, but even he would have liked a bit more expression sometimes.

Oh well. It was just the way Nade was, he supposed.

He was in such a rush to get out of the bathroom to dispose of the _evidence_ , he didn't even bother to give the mirror the customary smile he and Nade always gave it to check if their teeth were squeaky clean.

He quickly changed, mindful of the tripping hazards, and before Nade could so much as blink, he'd discreetly thrown away the 'piece of broken elbow bone' into the bin. He then breathed a sigh of relief, slumping over and finding that he was already tired.

"Tsu-kun! Na-chan! Time to leave!" mama called out, and with a boisterous laugh from papa and a goodbye shin-hug to nonno, both the twins and their parents walked to the Namimori Train Station, bustling happily with cheerful sounds and bright colours.

Tsuna thought he spotted a mop of very familiar dark hair, but before he could nudge Nadeshiko to ask her whether she recognised the person, he had disappeared.

It was just as well—Tsuna was okay with no tragically dramatic interferences, and his intuition was telling him that the dark haired person would be a _huge_ interference.

Papa collected their tickets with a cheerful nod at the person at the till and, after Tsuna had to go to the bathroom really badly even though he'd gone just before they'd left and Nadeshiko wandered off by herself and had to be tracked down, the family of four sat in the train and watched the world pass them by.

The scenes of the Japanese countryside were unfamiliar to Nadeshiko, who expected far more…well, she hadn't expected _this_ , and that was as far as she could take that thought before slipping into a buried memory.

" _Mama?"_

" _Shh, mio orsetto…"_

 _The men in dark suits couldn't be here for her, surely…_

" _Excuse me sir, have you seen this woman?"_

" _N-No sir."_

 _Slip away Lucia, while his back is turned. Hide Mukuro. Over my dead body._

" _Are you certain? If there is any information you can give us…well, let's put it this way, it would be in your best interests to help us in any way you can."_

" _Sh-She looks like the woman who was sitting there. Please, leave my daughter!"_

" _Mama?"_

 _Yank the chain Lucia. You have nothing to lose. Stop the train. As it halts, press the button, open the door,_ _ **jump**_ _. Do not look back. Do not be afraid. Mukuro does not need a scared mother—he needs a strong one, and you're all he has._

" _Do you think she jumped off the train? Foolish woman!"_

 _Heart pumping, nerves numbing, blood rushing, horn blasts, yelling, shouting, the screech of the train wheels._

 _They would_ _ **never**_ _get her baby._

 _Not as long as she had breath in her lungs._

" _There she is! I see her!"_

 _Run Lucia. Do not look back._

 _Run like the devil is on your tail._

 _Run like the weak coward you are._

 _Run._

"Nade?"

She snapped out of the memory, her heart racing at just the thought of all the trains she'd hopped onto and jumped off of for two long years before she'd managed to shake her tails off.

Or at least, she'd thought she had. Clearly, for four whole blissful months, she'd been ignorant.

"I'm fine Tsuna."

And she would be.

Of course, the worry and fear and _guilt at leaving her little Honey Bear to_ _ **die**_ wouldn't disappear…but Lucia was Nade now, and that made a literal world of a difference.

Besides, there was only so much worrying a person could do before they decided to go with the flow. And Nade was the epitome of lackadaisical-until-provided-a-reason-not-to-be.

Tsuna didn't seem all that convinced, but he let it go after patting Nade on the head comfortingly.

* * *

A few stops went whizzing by, with Nana exclaiming at how excited she was every so often, making Iemitsu feel sick to the stomach with repressed guilt—Nana shouldn't _have_ to be so excited by something so _normal_.

But he supposed that was one of the best things about Nana—she never wanted for more. She was the type that made the 'less' seem to be more than enough.

He reached out and clasped her hand in his tightly, feeling her pulse beat under his callused fingertips, and he managed not to worry for a moment about Oregano's latest assignment, or Lal Mirch's latest report.

Who knew that the supposed bastard child of the Vongola Nono was actually _adopted_?

Iemitsu tried not to dwell on how his hyperintuition was going haywire with this piece of news, instead trying to focus on the fact that, for the first time in his life, he was going to an amusement park.

The train slowed to a halt and they disembarked, Iemitsu still holding a blushing Nana's hand, intertwining their fingers tightly.

"Don't fall behind Tsuna!" he called over his shoulder carelessly, passively noting that, just as he said it, Tsuna managed to trip and hit his head on one of the advertisement-boards.

"I want that."

Iemitsu turned to look at what his daughter was pointing at, seeing a stall selling different types of chocolate.

He looked down at her solemn face with a bright grin. "Let's get some then!"

He easily lifted her with his spare arm, the other one currently occupied holding Nana's hand, and with Tsuna finally catching up to his family, they made their way to the chocolate stall.

"What is this?" Nadeshiko asked, pointing at one of the…

 _Huh,_ thought Iemitsu in confusion. _Didn't know they sold things like this…_

"Chocolate-covered squid." Iemitsu read the label. " _Do you want to risk it?"_

Nadeshiko's lips twitched into a smile. " _I'll bite._ "

Nana, meanwhile, was asking for free samples with that beatific smile of hers, Tsuna warily eyeing the shopkeeper from behind his mother's skirt.

"Two squids on a skewer please!" Iemitsu ordered, taking out his wallet.

Handing over the correct number of coins, he held out one skewer to Nadeshiko and shoved the other into his mouth.

Immediately, he felt like gagging at the taste, but when he looked down, he saw that Nadeshiko had a thoughtful look on her face, and when she was done, she asked for more.

So Iemitsu obliged, buying her two more skewers and paying for Nana and Tsuna's purchases, the taste of chocolate-covered squid still cloying in his mouth, the rubbery texture negating the normally pleasing effect of chocolate.

He honestly didn't know where his daughter got her tongue from, but it _certainly_ wasn't from him.

* * *

Tsuna had never seen so many rides in his _life_ —all three years of it.

There was so much to take in, and he tried his best to commit absolutely everything to memory, and for the most part, he succeeded in forgetting that his elbow was potentially missing a huge chunk of bone, something that had been worrying him ever since Nadeshiko had informed him that the squid she was eating had no bones.

He'd also tried some, but he may or may not have choked on it, which may or may not have resulted in a casual visit to the Kokuyo Infirmary that Tsuna may or may not have found to be a pretty small practice compared to the Namimori General Hospital.

But that may or may not have happened—Tsuna would just have to gloss over that memory when he went back to it at a later date.

"Can we ride that?" he squealed quietly, staring with starry eyes at the merry-go-round.

Nadeshiko glanced at what had her elder brother so excited, and thought he was talking about the rollercoaster in the background, currently performing a 360° loop-de-loop.

She stared at Tsuna with newfound respect.

Then, she noted the height measuring sign at the entrance to the line. "We're too small for it."

Tsuna, thinking she was talking about the merry-go-round, pouted cutely and took her hand, leading her to the glass dome structure, where the family of four saw a wide variety of tropical plants and tropical animals, parrots and snakes included.

Tsuna cowered behind mama for most of the reptile exhibit, and then had a panic attack when he caught sight of the boa constrictor on display, lazily coiling around its tree branch. He kept well away from it, going as far as to nearly mingle with a group of primary school children on a field trip.

In fact, one could say that what happened next wouldn't have happened if Tsuna didn't have the most hideous luck in the universe.

He was so busy trying to hide from the boa constrictor, he accidentally knocked into a little girl, who knocked into her dog, who knocked over a pile of snacks, one of which happened to have had the unfortunate fate of pressing against the button that had been installed when the Kokuyo Land plans had been conceived—back when the snake cages were supposed to hold harmless, cuddly baby koalas and bunnies.

Back when the idea had been to make it a petting room.

All the glass panels slowly slid down as one, and it took a moment for the snakes to realise what was going on— _they were free!—_ but as soon as they did, they hissed and slithered to their exits.

The resulting chaos was something Tsuna would have nightmares about, even in his fifties.

And through all of that—mama jumping into papa's arms, papa screaming his head off and somehow acquiring a gun, the yakuza deciding to make an entrance, the Hibari scion death-glaring him into oblivion even though he had _no way_ of proving, or even having _seen_ , that it was Tsuna's fault—the one thing that _really_ stuck in Tsuna's mind was that Nadeshiko had broken a branch out of a tree and hit a snake so hard, it died.

For years to come, Tsuna would always remember that his twin sister could _kill a_ _ **snake**_ _by hitting it hard enough at the age of_ _ **three**_.

In another world, Tsuna might have grown up with his mother alone and figured that women needed to be protected, because lord knows his mama needed all the protection she could _get_.

But, with a sister like Sawada Nadeshiko, who went to check on the state of the _dead snake_ , making the sea of snakes part in her wake like the red sea, and muttered that the blow _wasn't clean enough_ , and then _tutted at herself_ …

Well, suffice it to say, Tsuna wouldn't be making _that_ sort of assumption in the near future.

"Anata! The snake ate Tsu-kun's tooth!"

Wait, what?

* * *

 _Well, they made it to Kokuyo Land! Where Tsuna has_ stated _he'd been when he was a little kid, so yeah._

 _How was the chapter? Hibari Kyouya made an appearance, Xanxus was mentioned, I've finally outright stated that she is Mukuro's mother and Tsuna lost a tooth!…yup, and that's a wrap._


	18. The Pea Incident

**Something Simple**

 _'I don't trip. I do random gravity checks.'_

* * *

It was two weeks into the New Year when Tsuna went to the hospital for a serious surgery.

Nadeshiko, at the time of the accident, had been in a fierce battle, with her dignity on the line.

"Surrender to me, female!" yelled Mochida-sensei's four year old son imperiously. "You suck!"

His taunts were childish, almost rehearsed, but something about that lug of annoyance made her want to whack him with a stick so hard he went into a jellyfish state and never recovered.

So, as was the rule at the dojo, she issued a formal challenge.

"I would fight thy son, oh honoured sensei, for he hath scorned me," she informed Mochida-sensei.

Mochida Senior, for his part, was grateful that the girl was intelligible, after months of trying to guess at what she was saying and using rudimentary hand gestures and grunts to communicate for so long.

He'd obviously planned on dropping her from the programme immediately, what with her being a _girl_ on top of being three. But mostly because she was a girl.

However, he'd changed his mind one wonderful December day—an epiphany had caused him to re-evaluate his entire existence and all his long-standing worldviews.

On a completely unrelated note, that was also the day he'd seen Sawada Nadeshiko giggling at one of the bloodstains in the back alleyways, singing a rather creepy foreign song in a lilting voice, looking as innocent as a baby bluebird.

He knew deranged when he saw it.

"Let's get a second opinion on this," Mochida-sensei said, eager to have plausible deniability to hide behind should anything untoward happen. "Ichibana-sensei, should Sawada be allowed to challenge a senpai, even though she only begun basic stances last week?"

Ichibana-sensei, who was as old as he was taciturn, grunted. Mochida Senior took it to mean 'fuck off, mate. Trying to have my lunch break here.'

"Ichibana-sensei says yes?" Sawada-female asked, her head tilting innocently.

Mochida Senior had never seen anything quite so demonic before.

He gulped. "Ichibana-sensei says yes."

"I'll wipe a floor wi'you, female!" yelled Mochida Junior, a superior smirk still on his face.

Nadeshiko smiled at him with an almost visceral level of sweetness. "You can _try, lizard-breath_."

Sometimes, Mochida Senior wished he knew what she was saying in that _other_ language. Most of the time though, he was glad he had absolutely no idea.

Some things were better left to the imagination.

"Right," he started, clearing his throat and waiting for the two under-fives to get into position, gear on and shinai at the ready. "For the purposes of this match, the first one who goes outside the line loses. Are the instructions clear?"

Nadeshiko nodded, a clear-eyed even gaze trained on her opponent, and Mochida Junior gave his father a thumbs up.

"Right then…BEGIN!"

Barely thirty seconds later, Mochida Junior was sprawled on the opposite side of the dojo with three lumps forming on the crown of his head.

Nadeshiko gave his fallen form a formal bow before sedately walking away, not even having broken a sweat when she whacked her opponent hard enough for him to see stars.

Mochida Senior was maybe, kind of, probably, _very_ terrified of the girl.

"Mochida-sensei!" one of the teenage members of the dojo called out, running towards him. "A message for one of the beginners—Sawada Nadeshiko. Her brother is in the hospital, and he's going into surgery!"

Nadeshiko hadn't heard a word, not bothering to translate when someone wasn't directly speaking to her. Mochida-sensei beckoned her over, and she walked over to him with a deadpanned expression.

"You summoned thy vassal, oh honoured sensei?"

The teenage boy looked at her weirdly, but that was nothing new.

"Sawada, Yamamoto-san is here to take you to the hospital. Your brother is—"

Nadeshiko was already out the door.

* * *

"Surgery?" Nadeshiko asked worriedly. "Is it dangerous this time?"

"Something about nasal cavities," said Tsuyoshi-san, worried that Nadeshiko might catch a cold; it was still winter, and the girl was only wearing her kendo hakama. "Nana-san wasn't very clear."

They had reached the hospital and were heading to the room the receptionist had directed them to, Nadeshiko's concern mounting.

Papa hadn't visited since their birthday nearly three months ago, but even then, Nadeshiko was disappointed when he wasn't with mama in the waiting room. She was wringing her hands together and smiling at the wall, as though trying to tell herself that everything would be okay.

Nadeshiko immediately went up to her and held one of her worrying hands, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Nii-chan is baka, but nii-chan will fine," she said solemnly, wondering if the grammar was correct.

Since no one called her out on it, she gave herself a mental pat on the back.

If something happened to Tsuna, though, there wouldn't _be_ anyone to call her out on her atrocious grammar…

Mama pulled her into a hug, smoothing her sweaty hair, to comfort both her baby girl and herself. "Hai, Na-chan. Tsu-kun will be fine."

* * *

Tsuyoshi-san waited with them, chatting normally to try and bring up mama and Nadeshiko's spirits, and for a little while, it seemed to be working. But there was something tight about the corner of mama's eyes that made Nadeshiko think that things weren't all that they seemed.

"—and Takeshi's getting to be tall already! I think he's the tallest in his class!" Tsuyoshi-san said, which reminded Nadeshiko of just how much Tsuna really wanted to go to school and make lots of friends.

"Mama," Nadeshiko said carefully, enunciating every syllable, drawing the adults' attention. "Tsuna wants to go to nursery school."

It was _hard_ to talk in solely modern Japanese, and Nadeshiko realised that she wasn't ready for Tsuna to leave her—she would never be ready for Tsuna to leave her.

Nana, who had been adamant that neither one of the twins would go to nursery until Nadeshiko could function in a Japanese-only environment, felt whatever resistance she had to flinging her children into the world crumbling.

"As soon as Tsu-kun gets better," Nana promised, "I'll enrol both of you at Namimori Nursery, ne?"

Nadeshiko nodded, not caring either way but glad that Tsuna got his wish.

The doctor arrived a while later, looking grave and solemn.

"Is everything all right, Urura-sensei?" Nana asked.

Urura-sensei nodded gravely. "Your son will be fine, Sawada-san."

Out of the corner of her eye, Nadeshiko saw a stretcher carrying a moaning Mochida Junior trundling past.

Something inside her purred with satisfaction.

"Can we go in to see him?" mama asked, tugging at her elbow-length hair in worry.

"Of course," Urura-sensei said gravely. "Right this way, Sawada-san."

The three of them followed the doctor into a private room with a window overlooking Namimori in all its sunset-ing glory, bathed in reds and oranges and pinks and golds.

Tsuna lay on one of the beds, looking tired but otherwise fine.

Nadeshiko immediately went over to him and slapped him upside the head. "What did _you do fratello?_ "

Tsuna hid under the blanket and refused to speak.

" _Fratello,"_ Nadeshiko said, irritated. "Come forth from under thine blanket."

Mama giggled at her children and Tsuyoshi-san chuckled amiably. "You gave us quite a scare there, Tsuna!"

"Are you feeling better, Tsu-kun?" mama asked, sitting down on a visitor's chair.

The blanket-covered lump mumbled incoherently, and Nadeshiko gave it a deadpanned stare. "Ye are making this _difficult_ Tsuna."

She yanked the blankets off the bed with one powerful tug, exposing Tsuna and knocking over his food tray on the side table.

Tsuna was blushing a very ugly shade of red, looking anywhere but at his little sister.

"Tsuna," she said. "What _stupid thing_ placed thee in a hospital?"

Tsuna winced, floofy hair even floofier than usual. "Ara Na-chan, Tsu-kun just got out of surgery! Don't put him under stress too soon, ne?"

Nadeshiko gave mama a disbelieving stare. "No signs of damage."

Tsuna whimpered. "I tripped."

"Tripped into what?" Nadeshiko asked.

"Mama."

Nadeshiko tilted her head in confusion, feeling slightly icky because of the drying sweat in her hair. She made a mental note to take a shower the minute they got home. "Bones?"

Tsuna shook his head, still red. "No, no broken bones. Mama was making dinner."

Mama chirped, "I had a bowl of boiled peas in my hands, and when Tsu-kun bumped into me, the bowl fell, ne?"

"Glass?" Nadeshiko asked, eyes roving Tsuna's body to see where he might have been cut.

Tsuna shook his head, embarrassment still colouring his face, and now he burrowed himself in the pillows. "A pea got…stuck up my nose."

Pin drop silence.

Nadeshiko and Tsuyoshi began howling with laughter, and mama giggled now that the danger had passed.

Tsuna, not for the first _or_ last time, cursed his clumsiness.

* * *

Hibari Kyouya watched the female.

Hibari Kyouya followed the female.

Hibari Kyouya paid the female's herbivore's hospital bills.

Hibari Kyouya waited for the female to get to the point where he could make her join his carnivorous ways.

After all, it got lonely at the top of the food chain.

* * *

 _Sorry this chapter is shorter than the others. And no, Hibari isn't in love with her. He's four years old, for one, and for two, he just wants a friend but doesn't think anyone's worthy. Keep in mind that he is FOUR, so it's not too OOC._

 _Now, a guest reviewer said that it wasn't normal, especially in bilingual families, for children to be able to talk coherently by age four, or in this case, three. Even genius babies. I love that you actually took the time to discern that - shows that maybe I haven't messed up and turned everyone off this story. The thing is, I was two when I started talking, and three by the time I was talking coherently in two different languages - I grew up in a trilingual household, but two of them are spoken similarly, so I don't think it counts for this purpose. My brother had difficulty with this, but he was talking coherently by age three as well, although in only one language._

 _Thusly, because Tsuna has grown up in an environment where he kind of needs to understand and translate two languages, and is never treated like a baby by Nadeshiko but as an intelligent equal, he's a bit - a_ bit _\- more mature, just as all babies in his situation would be. So, it isn't odd that he knows a cache of phrases intelligibly, in two different languages. I hope I've explained it all right, but if you're still not convinced, well..._

 _Lambo is FIVE. FIVE. He can handle bazookas and grenades, knows two languages, gymnastics, and has travelled to a different country, and he's FIVE. KHR has proven that age is never going to be a hindrance for development._

 _Sorry for the ridiculously long author's note...What did you think of this chapter?_


	19. The Second Introduction

**Something Simple**

 _'Can you repeat the part of the stuff where you said all about the things?'_

* * *

It was a lovely spring morning in April, and Tsuna was trembling with something akin to pre-wedding jitters.

Today was the day, the day that made or broke him, and he was fortunate enough to have all three of his most important people here to see him off as he embarked on this life-changing journey—mama, papa and nonno all stood around him, fawning over him and ruffling his hair and making him feel incredibly special.

Mama had a happy smile on her face, papa was constantly wiping the stream of tears pouring out of his eyes and not even bothering to muffle his rather embarrassing sobs, and nonno was gently stroking Tsuna's fluffy hair and muttering a prayer in what he said was Latin.

Tsuna was equal parts beaming so brightly it was blinding and wanting to run to the bathroom to pee—sometimes, the latter more than the former.

Today was the day, the day that he would turn into a _man_.

"Ara," mama said anxiously, glancing at the door. "Where is Na-chan?"

Papa was too busy crying to answer her, but nonno smiled at her reassuringly. "It's okay, Nana. Yamamoto-san is very punctual—he will ensure that they're not late."

Tsuna looked at the door worriedly too now, hoping that the sheer force of his will would make Nade burst through that door, sweaty and pleased with herself, her elbow-length hair in a braid, side-swept bangs pinned back and shinai strapped to her back.

Today was the day, the day that his reputation would be decided for the end of time.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Nade _did_ come bursting through the front door, her white kendo hakama having turned an off-white colour after nearly a year of kendo training, her duffle bag gripped tightly in her right hand and shinai holder slung over her left shoulder.

"Maa, Na-chan, you're going to be late if you don't change quickly!" mama exclaimed, running to take Nade's bag and shinai from her. Papa, tears still streaming down his face, picked a blank-faced Nade effortlessly and carried her like a sack of potatoes up the stairs and into her room.

Tsuna and nonno heard clattering and banging upstairs, along with a string of angry Italian, before Nade and papa came back down four minutes later, his _sorella's_ hair damp from the two minute shower she must ostensibly have taken.

Unlike Tsuna, who wore lemon yellow shorts, Nade wore a lemon yellow skirt, but they both had on baby-blue full-sleeved shirts with yellow collars, winter white socks and black Velcro shoes. Their satchels were both a colour between orange and mustard yellow, and they both had their yellow hats clutched in their hands.

Tsuna was ever so grateful that he wasn't alone—he didn't know whether he would be able to do this without Nade.

(In another world, where Nade didn't exist, a little Tsuna would have wet his shorts the minute he walked into class and would indeed have sullied not only his nursery school pants, but also his reputation, and it would have shaped the useless man he became thereafter.)

"Let's go Tsuna," she said, an affectionate smile on her face, plucking her shinai from mama's hands and slinging it on her left shoulder. "First day of _nursery school_ , don't wanta be _late_."

Mama gave Nade her best stern look, and while it would have worked on Tsuna, it didn't affect Nade one iota. "Na-chan, I don't think you should take your shinai to school."

Nade gave her such a bright smile that Tsuna's eyes started smarting. "But mama, I'm me and no one else," she said carefully, enunciating every syllable properly. "So I'll do what I want, not what others see as, how do you say… proper."

Tsuna didn't like the sad look in mama's eyes, but the fire in Nade's eyes assured him that she wouldn't be backing down. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, so he may or may not have started hyperventilating.

Luckily, papa came to the rescue. "Maa, Nana, let Nade take her shinai—it's her mark after all!"

Nade gave papa a look of adoration, and mama relented, not used to being the opposition. "Maa, if the school doesn't complain, you can take your shinai, ne?"

Nade nodded, and Tsuna got the feeling that even if the teachers had complaints, Nade would find a way to silence them.

"I hate to interrupt, but if we don't leave now, they will be late for school," nonno cut in gently but firmly.

Papa laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Haha! Nono's right Tsuna, Nade. Let's go!"

Tsuna held out his right hand and Nade casually took hold of it with her left one, and together, the entire family unit walked to the nursery school.

* * *

Papa started crying again halfway there and Nade gave him a pat on his knee to console him.

When he still didn't stop crying (in fact, for some reason Nadeshiko couldn't fathom, he was crying _harder)_ , mama gave him a big hug and they started making embarrassing cooing noises at each other. Tsuna hid his burning red face in nonno's pant legs at the development, quickening his pace, while Nade just looked on with a deadpanned expression.

A bell rang when they were two minutes away from their destination and Tsuna wanted to cry—not the best start to their educational careers.

Nadeshiko felt slightly melancholy.

Lucia remembered a time when her own family hadn't been as broken as they'd become…back when her parents had had something resembling feelings of love for their only child, back when she'd been happy and they'd wanted her to be happy too…but all dreams end, and all happiness fades, and Lucia was dead.

An almost unconscious squeeze from Tsuna's hand brought her back to her current reality, and she soon forgot about it in the face of her twin brother's panicked visage.

" _Mio fratello,"_ she said quietly, nudging his shoulder to get his attention. " _It's okay to be fashionably late on the first day. It's your personality you're selling, not your time-keeping."_

Tsuna's shoulders relaxed slightly, although the worried expression on his face didn't disappear as they approached the friendly blue building, the sign above it unintelligible to the illiterate twins.

There was a nice wimpy-looking man at the entrance, with a white apron over his dark blue soft sweater, greeting every parent-child pair. Tsuna instantly felt an astral-level connection to him—they were fellow victims of being _sensible_ in this mad mad world.

Nade, her blank face in place already, bowed politely to the man, hitting him with her shinai in the process accidentally.

But judging by the evil smirk on her face, Tsuna didn't think it was an unhappy accident.

"It's nice to see new faces!" the man said in a soft voice, pushing his overly large glasses back clumsily as they slid down his nose. "I am Toshiro-sensei, and I'm in charge of the second year students. What are your names?"

He looked down at Tsuna kindly, and he couldn't help but blush. "Ano…my name's Sawada Tsu-na-yo-shi, and this is my twin sister, Nadeshiko."

Nade gave him a smile that seemed rather insincere and said, "Call me Nade."

It wasn't a request, and even Toshiro-sensei could see that. He gulped audibly and nodded quickly. "O-of course Nade-sama!"

Mama giggled, not finding this strange at all, and nonno looked at Nade consideringly. Papa hadn't stopped crying, but Tsuna's jaw dropped.

Toshiro-sensei turned back to Tsuna, clearly trying to avoid eye contact with Nade and praying that she wasn't in his class.

He'd never seen them before, so they _must_ be in first year, right?

So long as they weren't four years old, he would be fine.

"And how old are you, Tsunayoshi-chan?" he asked nervously with a smile.

Tsuna looked at him rather apologetically, already sensing that Toshiro-sensei wouldn't like his answer. "Four years old this October, Toshiro-sensei."

Toshiro-sensei wilted.

Nade giggled and Tsuna sighed.

* * *

After bidding an overly tearful papa and cheerful mama goodbye, and getting their hair ruffled and a Latin verse blown in their faces by nonno, the twins toddled behind Toshiro-sensei, who was cursing his luck under his breath.

"…of all the—at least it isn't Hibari-san," he said finally, cheering up considerably.

Nadeshiko's ears picked up the name 'Hibari', and a face-consuming blush erupted on her face. Tsuna poked her cheek to indicate that she had the world's goofiest smile on her face, but she was too busy being in deep crush to care.

He reached a bright red door and motioned for them to come closer.

Tsuna clutched the straps of his satchel nervously, knuckles whitening. "Now, Tsunayoshi-chan, you don't need to be afraid," Toshiro-sensei said with a reassuring smile that made Tsuna loosen his grip slightly. "Your classmates are all really nice people, and I'm sure you'll get along wonderfully with them. Now, I'm going to go in and ask you to introduce yourself to the class. Can you do that for me?"

He looked at Tsuna imploringly, and Tsuna felt a huge volley of dread shoot through his body. He wanted to say that he had absolutely no intention of addressing a large audience of potentially hostile peers, but…

Well…

He looked at Nade, who seemed to be frowning at a poster on the corridor wall, muttering Italian to herself.

If Tsuna didn't introduce them both, who would? Certainly not Nade, _that_ was for sure.

He looked back at Toshiro-sensei with determination in his eyes, and Toshiro-sensei felt a strange urge to fall on his knees in front of this child.

"I'll do it, sensei."

Nade looked away from the poster with a dancing pineapple on it and said, "Time to scare the sharks."

Tsuna, in his eternal wisdom, chose to ignore this.

They all walked into the cheery classroom, the walls a soft pink and the chairs and tables arranged in groups of fours and sixes. Tsuna tried to look for two places next to each other, but he only found one table with two free seats, and they weren't next to each other.

The class had twelve odd students by Tsuna's estimate—Nade had been teaching him numbers and he could go up to twenty now!—and he spotted Kyoko-chan almost immediately, sitting on one of the tables closer to the front, along with three other girls.

"Everyone," Toshiro-sensei said in his airy voice, coming off as even more wimpy than previously thought possible, "we have two new students joining our class today! Would you like to introduce yourself?"

Tsuna gulped but, from Toshiro-sensei's encouraging smile and Nade's reassuring nudge, he stuttered out a squeaky, "H-hello! I'm Tsuna, a-and this is my twin sister Nade. W-we hope to get along well with you!"

Tsuna found that this might be the appropriate moment to bow and take a seat, but Toshiro-sensei said, "Does anyone have any questions for Tsuna-chan and Nade-chan?" and Tsuna realised that maybe, just maybe, Toshiro-sensei wasn't as nice as he looked—even if his hyperintuition told him that Toshiro-sensei _was_ a nice person.

A kid with short, spiky black hair and slightly tanned skin raised his hand and, before being given permission to speak, asked loudly, "Do you play baseball?"

Tsuna stared at him with wide eyes. "Umm…no?"

"What's baseball?" Nade asked, not understanding the Japanese word.

The kid looked horrified, and exclaimed, "How dya not know what baseball is?! Every'ne knows what baseball is!"

Tsuna wished the ground would swallow him up when Nade tilted her head in mild confusion. "I don't, so you're wrong."

The spiky haired boy's eyes widened in comical misery and a black cloud hung over his head. "Sh-she…how…not know… _baseball man!_...I don't…"

"Sensei!" a little girl with bunny teeth shrieked. "Nade-chan broke Takeshi-kun!"

The class of four year olds erupted in panicked shrieking and hollering, prompting Toshiro-sensei to plan his early retirement already.

"Everyone…ch-children!" he tried to yell with his wimpy voice. Just hearing it crack made Tsuna wince.

This wince catalysed a chain of events that could only be labelled as disastrous, so technically speaking, it was all Tsuna's fault.

* * *

Nadeshiko thought the yellow hat that was a part of their uniform was stupid, but it _was_ useful when shoved into annoying baseball nuts' mouths.

The spiky haired boy, 'Takeshi-kun', started choking on Nadeshiko's lemon hat and it served him right too, making Tsuna feel embarrassed on his first day of school. The nerve of some people!

Tsuna squawked in indignation as Takeshi-kun yanked the hat out of his mouth and glared at Nadeshiko, who gave him a razor sharp innocent smile, perfected after months of scaring the crap out of Mochida-sensei.

"Whaddaya do that for?" he asked, reaching his hand inside his mouth to take out a piece of lint jammed between his growing teeth.

"Thy asinine behaviour doth indeed provoke riotous conduct that is not within thine jurisdiction," she informed him imperiously.

Takeshi-kun's eyes started spinning when he tried to work out what she meant, and the bunny-tooth girl started clapping in awe.

Soon, another riot started—the Takeshi-kun Fan Club vs the Nade-chan Forming Fan Club—and Nadeshiko got a twitch in her eye when she saw the pained look in Tsuna's innocent eyes. Her brother had never really liked violence.

She put two fingers into her mouth and blew a sharp whistle that pierced the noisy yelling, then she drew her shinai and _thwack!_ ed it onto the floor.

"Shut up, or I'll _make you!_ " she said with an overly sugary voice and a sharp scowl.

Though the children didn't understand her threat, they understood intimidation when they saw it and sat down—the shinai-wielding girl with samurai-era vocabulary was _scary_.

Thus began Sawada Nadeshiko's scholastic career.

Oh.

And Tsuna's too.

* * *

Toshiro-sensei whimpered, and may or may not have cried himself to sleep that night.

* * *

 _What did you think of their first entrance into polite society? Takeshi was here, but he won't show up much…unless I change my mind…nah, he won't show up much except in passing. What did you think about Toshiro-sensei? Nade's become very violent all of a sudden, hasn't she?_

 _Poor Tsuna…_


	20. The Dream Reality

**Something Simple**

 _'Keep your dreams alive. Hit the snooze button.'_

* * *

"The trees are _supposed to be green_ _mio fratello."_

Tsuna had firmly decided that colouring was the hardest subject his entire educational career would provide.

How was he supposed to know that trees could only be _verde_ and not _arancia?_

He put the orange crayon back onto the table and asked his table partner shyly, "Could you pass the _verde_ crayon?"

The frizzy haired girl stared at him blankly. "What?"

Tsuna tried again. "The _verde_ crayon _per favore?"_

"Weirdo!" yelled the girl, prompting the rest of the class to look at them.

Nade, meanwhile, continued colouring in her shark drawing, unaware of the out-of-proportion showdown that was soon going to take place, with Tsuna, as usual, in the epicentre.

It was _fucking_ day two as well, just so Tsuna's bad luck is completely evident.

"Tsuna-chan's an alien!" she screamed.

Toshiro-sensei came to their table. "What's the matter Shizuka-chan?"

She looked at her sensei with unbridled determination. "Tsuna-chan," she intoned dramatically, pointing at the startled boy, "is an _alien!"_

Nade decided the shark was going to have grey eyes, just because she could.

She liked light eyes actually. It was an odd preference.

Tsuna stuttered, "I-I'm n-not an alien!"

He then proceeded to act suspiciously alienish by checking to see if all his limbs were still intact and in the right sockets. "S-See!"

Toshiro-sensei pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Why do you think that Shizuka-chan?"

She gave him a dramatically horrified look. "He was talking alien!"

"Speaking," corrected Toshiro-sensei reflexively. "Tsuna-chan, what did you say to Shizuka-chan?"

Toshiro-sensei was under the misguided impression that Tsuna just wasn't good at pronouncing words, but when Tsuna's reply was half-Italian, Toshiro-sensei looked gobsmacked.

"W-What did you just say Tsuna-chan?" he asked with forced calmness.

Nade looked up from her colouring; the shark she'd drawn was vicious, and the grinning teeth were a suspiciously bright red colour. "Tsuna requested the female to bequeath him the crayon his soul desireth greatly."

Toshiro-sensei's brain started spinning, and without thinking of the consequences, he spoke his thoughts out loud. "You're _definitely_ an alien..."

"ALIENS!" screamed several people of the class and Tsuna's face became a bright purple. He started sinking in his seat while Nade sat obliviously, seemingly uncaring about the social suicide this event was causing for her and her brother.

Toshiro-sensei tried to assuage the situation. "They're not _really_ aliens..."

But his quiet voice and unconvincing reassurance was only fuelling the fire.

"They're HALF-ALIENS!" yelled the boy sitting next to Nade.

Nade gave him an interested look. "What is this thou speakest of?"

Some children started screaming and pointing at Tsuna. "His face is red! He's a red alien!"

"Alien!"

"Twin Aliens!"

Nade didn't mind the noise, but Tsuna was only used to one person (Ryo-nii) being that loud at a time, so he flinched and started crying.

Toshiro-sensei was mentally preparing his resignation letter.

Nade looked up and gave Tsuna a fond exasperated smile and picked up the green crayon. She looked at Shizuka.

"Are you deaf?" she asked curiously. "He asked for a crayon."

Shizuka pointed at Nade dramatically. "You understand the alien!?"

Nade raised an eyebrow at her and then unsheathed her shinai, swinging and pointing it at her face threateningly, an inch away from her nose. "'Tis rude to point."

Tsuna wet his pants.

Oh joy.

* * *

The sun glinted against the steel-grey of the spoon, lovingly tracing the liquid honey dripping into the bowl, sinful waves of creamy delight coiling in its cupped hands. The spring afternoon expanded, engulfing her senses, engulfing the _world_ in its loving embrace, and Lucia sat and breathed.

In front of her sat a gurgling child, the wooden bench weatherworn beneath his chubby fingers, his dark blue hair falling into his eyes, equally as dark blue as his mother's.

As _hers_.

Lucia sighed in contentment, a bowl of praline caramel gelato in front of her, and the sun warming her light blonde hair, falling on it like a crown of peace.

" _Mama!"_ her son said, waving his hands at her excitedly as she scooped another spoonful and wafted it towards his face, humming an old nursery rhyme and playfully snatching the spoon further away from him whenever his tiny fingers curled too close to the spoon.

" _Mio orsetto, patience. You must be patient,"_ she heard herself say, a voice that was now unfamiliar to her—a voice too deep and throaty to be hers anymore.

" _But it hurts mama."_

This was not how she remembered it.

Her son couldn't speak at this age, didn't sound so _broken_ at this age—or at all in her memories.

She put her spoon down and narrowed her eyes, trying to see what her clouded eyes refused to show her.

The shadows laced over her baby, black as pitch and smooth as silk, whispering lightly over his too-small limbs, wrapping over his happy eyes and grinning gums, slicing the illusion to ribbons. In his place sat a six year old boy, his dark blue hair parted in the same zigzag fashion as both Lucia and Nadeshiko, his dark blue eyes so like hers glittering with tears that he refused to let fall.

He cowered on the wooden bench, the sun tracing his pale skin and gaunt cheeks, making him look more vulnerable than the defiant upturn of his chin would suggest.

He hugged himself, and Lucia took only a second to reassemble her thoughts. She reached for him, the wooden table between them fading away into grains of sand, and pulled him closer to her, hugging him and feeling his rabbiting heart.

He was stiff as a board, tense as a guitar string.

Lucia smooth his hair down and kissed his forehead, cherishing the illusionary warmth of his skin as though it was reality.

" _Mio orsetto…"_

" _Mama?"_

His wide eyes bore into her tearful ones, the tremulous smile on her face matched with his gaping tiny mouth.

" _Is this a dream?"_ he asked, clutching onto her pale pink sundress, desperation and longing in the creases of his young face.

Lucia shook her head, holding him just as tightly, giving him the comfort he seemed to need more than air. _"Isn't everything?"_

" **Nade, wake up. Naptime's over."**

* * *

Sawada Nadeshiko blinked awake irritably, tears drying on her face and drool crusting her rosy cheeks.

Tsuna gave her a nudge. "It's story time Nade. Get up."

Nadeshiko closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

Tsuna gave her another nudge. "Nade, Toshiro-sensei'll get mad."

Nadeshiko huffed and rolled over, snuggling further into the government-issued nursery school blankets.

Tsuna tugged valiantly at her blanket to no avail. "Nade, _I'll_ get in trouble if you don't wake up."

Nadeshiko sat up irritably, wiping the wetness on her face with one hand and pushing her hair out of her face with the other.

She stalked out of the classroom, the other occupants cowering behind their desks as she strode past, her ever-present shinai strapped to her shoulder.

She'd made quite an impression on her classmates, even after only a week of 'education'.

* * *

Nadeshiko pondered her dream late at night, after her kendo practise, mama stuffing them full of something called natto, Tsuna nearly falling out of the second floor window twice, papa mistaking Tsuna for an armrest, nonno giving her a patented smile, Tsuna running screaming from the milkman's truck for some godforsaken reason…

She was used to dreaming about her past, the last two years especially, but never once had the dreams deviated from her memories.

She closed her eyes and recalled the spring afternoon and the praline cream gelato, her little Honey-Bear squealing in his seat as she shared more than half of the bowl with him, even though she hadn't been able to afford something that saccharine in _months_.

She remembered his puffs of annoyance as she taught him 'patience', and soon, bit by bit, by the end of the bowlful of creamy gelato, he'd learned how to use his cuteness to his advantage.

Nadeshiko knew he needed to learn how to survive, and the training from a young age plan had come to her as she'd shivered an entire night away in a dark alley, surrounded by litter and dust and cobwebs and rats.

But the boy in her dreams…

It was her Mukuro, of that she was certain, even though she hadn't lived long enough to see him grow past the age of two.

He'd known her the way she'd known him: as a person they loved deeply but couldn't remember clearly.

 _Was it just an illusion?_

Nadeshiko covered Tsuna's exposed toes with their shared blanket, making a mental note to remind papa to get them beds of their own.

 _Or was it real?_

* * *

It was dark and gloomy, drab and cold. Hunger gnawed on his insides, the aching pangs consuming him.

Mukuro hummed to himself, the old nursery rhyme that he heard echoing in his memories from time-to-time, his young voice creaking after the hoarse screaming he'd done today.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

There was a leaking faucet in the facility, and they were wasting water.

The tray of food near his prison cell door lay untouched, cold and hard and rough.

Mukuro knew hunger, had known hunger for a very long time.

But he'd been taught, although he barely remembered his teacher save for tired dark blue eyes and soft hands, that freedom was more important than immediate gratification.

The food smelled wrong, smelled tainted.

The last time he'd swallowed a mouthful, his throat had dried up and he hadn't been conscious for days, days where they'd ripped him open and stitched him back up, explored his insides.

 _He was dirty._

 _Polluted._

 _Tainted._

He hummed the old nursery rhyme, counting the beats of his heart, remembering a warm embrace from his dreams.

A small smile curled onto his face, making him look his age for the first time in four years.

He didn't remember mama.

But he was mama's boy.

He would _survive_.

* * *

 _Okay, so tell me how this chapter was, because I tried doing something that I'd had a brainwave to do, so...what do you think that dream thingy was? And Mukuro showed up! :) Review please?_


	21. The Pigeon Bed

**Something Simple**

 _'Shopping: the art of acquiring things you don't need with money you don't have.'_

* * *

"One plus one," Nadeshiko said, looking up from the sheet at Toshiro-sensei with incredulity. "This is easy."

Toshiro-sensei's eye twitched, but he forced himself to smile at his most troublesome student. "Would you like the advanced paper then, Nadeshiko-chan?"

The girl, her fluffy-brown hair in twin braids and cheeks rosy from the spring winds, glanced at the advanced worksheet, which had delightful questions like '9+17=?' and '6+5+?=13'

Nadeshiko was not amused.

"No, too easy," she said disdainfully, making Tsuna sink in his seat. He had trouble with two plus two! What even were numbers!?

Toshiro-sensei grimaced. "Well, why don't you try them Nadeshiko-chan, and if you get them all right, I'll ask Habana-sensei for the upperclassman's worksheet, okay?"

Nadeshiko contemplated this for a tense heartbeat before nodding, much to Toshiro-sensei's relief. The last time he'd made a suggestion she hadn't liked…

He understood, of course, that being this afraid of a four year old was kind of stupid, but at the same time, one look into the unholy glint in that pair of orangey brown eyes made him want to wet himself. _All the time_.

Five minutes later, Nadeshiko handed him a complete worksheet—all 50 questions answered _correctly_ —and Toshiro-sensei actually started to cry.

 _Why is she so bad with writing if her numeracy is so good?!_ he asked himself, blindly ticking all the answers on the paper.

Nadeshiko gave him a bored expression, and by the time he'd reached the end of the paper, he was trembling.

She'd even gotten the _hard_ one at the end correct.

That one required knowledge of _division_.

He hadn't even _taught_ them division yet!

He slowly, horrifiedly, looked up at Sawada Nadeshiko, who was patiently waiting for him to give her her expected verdict.

"Y-You got them all correct, Nadeshiko-chan!" exclaimed Toshiro-sensei with forced cheer. "How about I run along to Hotaru-sensei's room and get a harder worksheet for you? Ah, you're in charge of the class while I'm gone."

Nadeshiko paused for a moment, translating as fast as she could, before nodding. Toshiro-sensei bid a very hasty retreat, nearly tripping over his indoor slippers.

Nadeshiko turned to face the class, one hand casually stroking her shinai, eyes roving the suddenly deathly quiet classroom, everyone staring at her in horror.

"What is the purpose of thy gormless maw?" she asked the boy who usually sat next to her, Shouji.

He hastily started whispering to the girl that usually sat beside Tsuna. "What did she say?"

" **Alien-speak!** " hissed the girl, Shizuka, careful not to draw attention to herself from the scary alien girl.

"Nade isn't an alien," Tsuna said bravely, defending his little sister. "She's speakin' like a samurai!"

He'd unwittingly made it worse.

Whispers broke out among the four year olds, worried and scared about what tyrannical samurai things Sawada Nadeshiko would do to them if they so much as _blinked_ wrong.

How they _could_ blink wrong was not questioned.

Such was the hold Nadeshiko had on the masses.

Such was the hold she'd _always_ have on the masses.

* * *

Papa lay on the floor snoring in his underwear and off-white vest, a bottle of beer next to him. Nana and Timoteo were out at this current point in time—shopping by the sounds of it.

Tsuna was sitting in a corner, trying very hard to complete his maths worksheet.

He was trying the counting-on-fingers approach, just like Toshiro-sensei had taught them, but he was failing miserably. Maths was just not his forte.

In fact, neither was reading.

Or writing.

Tsuna's eyes started leaking chubby tears and his lower lip started trembling as he thought about his incompetence.

He'd been at school for more than three months now, and he was so far behind that he was running backwards.

Nadeshiko, he consoled himself, was running backwards _and_ sideways in reading and writing, so at least he wasn't a _complete_ failure.

Maths, on the other hand…Nade was doing _primary school_ work! She was as good as the first grade students!

Tsuna sunk into a spiral of depression, hunching his shoulders and sniffling morosely.

Nadeshiko, who'd just walked into the room after putting away her kendo gear, took one look at Tsuna's hunched back and frowned deeply.

She walked up to papa and— _the smell of rancid alcohol on father's breath as he slammed her head repeatedly against the wall and please make the pain stop father pleasepleasepleeeaaa—_ she shook her head to get rid of the thoughts.

She nudged the empty bottles away with her foot and curled up into a ball against papa's side, snuggling into his warmth.

Papa blinked his eyes open, yawning widely and stretching, before noticing that he had a snuggle-bug attached to his side.

" _Mia patatina!"_ he exclaimed boisterously. " _How was_ kendo _practice?"_

Nadeshiko shrugged, still curled up in her ball.

Tsuna looked over to the both of them curiously, tears shining on his plump cheeks.

Papa frowned. " _Did something happen at the dojo?"_

Nadeshiko curled tighter, refusing to look at her papa.

Papa started panicking. " _Did they hurt you?! Was it Tsuyoshi!? It was him, wasn't it? I knew I couldn't trust that man!"_

Tsuna scrambled to get up quickly and run to Nadeshiko, but he, as was the order of his life, tripped over his feet and smashed into papa's thigh.

"Nade," Tsuna said worriedly. "What is it?"

Nadeshiko peeked through her fringe and glanced at papa before looking away disdainfully. Papa started crying loudly. " _IT WAS ME?! MIA PATATINA, WHAT DID I DO!?"_

Tsuna tilted his head and contemplated this. "You never say goodbye 'afore you leave, you won't be here for our birthday this year, you make mama sad, you're never home, you taught Nade bad Japanese…" He was ticking things off his fingers one at a time thoughtfully and then pursed his lips.

"Oh!" he lit up as he remembered a problem Nadeshiko had with papa. "And you drink too much!" he said chidingly. "Nade's scared of drinkers."

He nodded firmly at this pronouncement, and then smiled shyly. "Did I get 'em all?"

Nadeshiko nodded as papa gaped at his twins. " _Papa,"_ she said. _"There's only one thing you can do to make up for this."_

Papa's gaze hardened in determination as he said solemnly, "Anything."

Nadeshiko took a look at Tsuna's shoulders, remembered how hunched they'd been only a few moments ago, and said, "Buy us beds."

Papa stared at her for an uncomfortable thirty seconds before bursting out laughing.

Tsuna pouted cutely. "You don' wantsa share with me anymore?"

He was looking at her with such pure puppy-sadness and confusion that Nadeshiko couldn't help herself. She pounced on him and bear-hugged him, kissing his cheeks repeatedly and giggling. " _Mio cucciolo! You are too cute!"_

Papa agreed, and at that moment, mama and nonno came into the house as well, and mama took out her ever-ready camera and snapped a photo of the twins hugging and giggling, with their papa laughing with them.

It was a good, adorable memory, and years later, they would appreciate it far more than they did then.

* * *

"This one?"

"No."

"What about this one?"

"…Tsuna, what does thou think?"

"No!"

" _But it has crystals, mio cucciolo. Crystals."_

Tsuna looked nearly hysterical, having decided quite firmly that shopping with his family was a _nightmare_.

Mama kept on getting distracted by _everything_ , papa wanted to buy _everything_ , nonno kept accidentally getting lost, Nade had made three separate shop clerks cry inconsolably, and Tsuna was at the end of _all_ his tethers.

"Nade, no," he said firmly, and Nade sighed but acquiesced.

"What about this one?" papa asked loudly, drawing everyone's attention to the clearly foreign man lifting his clearly disinterested daughter up to see an oak bedpost with flamingos painted on it.

Tsuna didn't even get to comment because he ran to run interference. Mama had just been snared by a weather vane salesman.

"It's all the rage these days, ma'am," said the man, shoving a rather ugly metal contraption at mama. "No house is complete without it!"

"Ara," said mama consideringly, "but it's so expensive!"

The salesman said, "For you ma'am, only twenty thousand yen."

Tsuna may not have been good at maths, but even he knew that that wasn't a bargain. Mama, unfortunately, was _very_ gullible.

"Well," she said, "that's quite cheap!"

"Mama," Tsuna said firmly, grabbing her hand and dragging her away from the vulture. "No."

"Tsu-kun! He said no house is complete without one!"

"No."

"But—"

"No."

"Okay…"

They got back to the others, just in time for him to realise that they'd misplaced nonno again. For the fifth time in the last twenty minutes.

"Nade!" he called. "Where's nonno?"

Nade pointed at a seemingly random direction without giving it much thought as she inspected the varnishing on one of the white bedposts.

Tsuna dutifully accepted her directions at face value and ran in that direction, finding nonno being picked on by—

" _Blasted pigeons!"_ nonno exclaimed, angry for the first time in Tsuna's memory, swatting away a pigeon that was trying to steal his hat from his head. " _May God curse you!"_

Tsuna had snapped some tethers by the time he'd saved nonno from the evil and surprisingly persistent pigeons, leading him by the hand to the rest of his family.

"Nonno, you can't wander off without us," he said chastisingly, worry etched on his face as he scolded his honorary grandpa. "What if you got sick and then _died_ without any of us knowing? You're old; it happens _all_ the time!"

Nonno's eyes softened as he listened to Tsuna fuss, the boy easily dodging people _because he wasn't paying attention to his feet_ , navigating the streets _so easily because he wasn't stressing about which direction to go_ , and finding his wayward sister and parents effortlessly _because he was too busy worrying about others to worry about his own assumed incompetence_.

Nonno, as he watched Tsuna reunite with his sister and lose all colour in his face when he took a good look at the bedposts she'd picked out for the two of them—something about bear claw legs for her and lions engraved on his—nonno didn't see a four year old child.

Nonno saw the future.

Tsuna, on the other hand, was _done_ with life.

* * *

 _Seeing as I couldn't get it into the story, let it be known that, after Nade stops giggling, she tells Tsuna that she just doesn't want him to be a hunchback, and that they're growing too big for their crib, not because she didn't want to share a bed with him._

 _Just so we're clear that no evilness has been done to his psyche on that front._

 _Does anyone else see the makings of a stressed fussy mother hen in Tsuna? Who am I kidding; we all see it! Review please?_


	22. The Bedding Crisis

**Something Simple**

 _'You think I'm crazy now? You should see me with my best friend.'_

* * *

Tsuna stared at his room in abject horror.

His orangey brown eyes were wide, his little fish mouth was gaping open, and he'd momentarily forgotten how to breathe.

"Lovely, _sí mio cucciolo?_ " Nade was standing next to him very proudly, feeling like she'd done an outstanding job in picking out the beds.

Tsuna let out a strangled yelp.

" _Of course, it would be nice to see the floor, but you can't have the cows_ _and_ _the barn_ ," she continued, unaware of Tsuna's imminent meltdown.

Or maybe she was aware, but since it was his natural state of being 98% of the time, it just didn't register as a problem anymore.

At the sound of thundering footsteps sounding on the stairs, Tsuna turned around almost mechanically, too in shock to really register much of anything.

"NADE! I JOINED THE GYMNASTICS CLUB NADE!" yelled Ryohei ecstatically, running to give Nade a hug. With a deadpanned look of fond suffering, Nade took a step to the left and he crashed headfirst into her bedpost.

Her _new_ bedpost.

Yes, the room that had once been the nursery, which had had cheerful yellow paint on the walls, a cupboard under the window with their clothes in it, a mirror hanging to the right of the door, and a crib in the centre of the room with their yellow blanket and orange pillow, was now…

Well, Tsuna couldn't see the floor anymore.

With the window as the dividing line in the centre, there was one bed to the right with wooden lions carved onto the mahogany bedpost, and the other bed at the left was some sort of metal-alloy bear—no, _literally_ _a bear_ ; where the tummy was supposed to be was where the mattress slotted in—that looked entirely too smug for Tsuna's liking.

Except that the beds were so big, the cupboard had to be wedged in sideways between them, and seeing as there was no room to actually get the drawers _open_ , and to get to the mirror required climbing onto the lion bed and ducking down, _because there was no space to get to anything_...

"That's nice _idiota_ ," said Nade, patting Ryohei's bruised head. "Don't touch my bed again."

Tsuna absentmindedly corrected her. "Not 'ore' Nade, 'atashi'*. You're not a boy."

Ryohei punched the air with great enthusiasm and exclaimed, "NADE'S A MAN AMONG MEN!"

Nade, humming in understanding, said, "I like 'ore' better."

Tsuna sighed. "Nade, I don't think this is going to work. There's no _space_."

The beds were tilted just to _fit_ into the room, and the door wouldn't shut because the lion bed was jamming it open.

Ryohei, oblivious as usual, declared, "Space is all in the head!"

" _There's_ only _space in your head,"_ Nade muttered. "But you are verifiable, Tsuna."

"Verifiable isn't the right word," Tsuna corrected, tentatively touching the bear's paw. "You mean 'correct', or 'wrong'."

Nade hummed. "Perhaps the course of action most expedient would be the obliteration of thine side of the chambers?"

Tsuna turned in panic. "No! You can't just break a _wall!_ "

Ryohei got a fire lit in his eyes. "Break the wall?"

Tsuna stuttered, "N-no!"

"Break the wall?!"

"N-no, Ryo-nii!"

"BREAK THE WALL!"

Tsuna watched with growing horror as Ryohei punched Tsuna's wall with as much force as his five year old body could muster.

An ominous _crack!_ hovered in the ensuing silence.

Nade blinked curiously. "Huh, thy efforts dented the wall, _idiota_."

Tsuna hysterically ran over to Ryohei's still form and began fussing. "You _broke_ your hand Ryo-nii! We hasta get you to hospital!"

Ryohei gave Tsuna a pained thumbs up. "One more punch should do the trick!"

Tsuna veritably yanked Ryohei out of the room to mama downstairs in the kitchen, Nade plodding behind them in amusement.

* * *

"Mama, Ryo-nii tried to break the wall and he hurt his hand and we hasta go to hospital!" Tsuna said hurriedly, trying to keep a lid on his overflowing worries.

Papa was with mama in the kitchen—mama must have gotten something stuck on her face, because papa was _really_ close to her mouth, and he even had something wet on his lips. Also, mama had gotten one of her buttons undone for some reason—and when he heard, he started laughing.

Tsuna stared at papa in exasperation. "We is havin' a _crisis!"_

"MY HAND IS FINE, NADE'S PAPA AND MAMA!"

"You're not helping, Ryo-nii!"

Mama clapped her hands. "Tsu-kun, if he says he's fine, then he's fine, ne?" she said cheerfully.

Nade stepped in just as Tsuna was about to lose his shit. "Papa, listen to Tsuna."

Papa took a while before he stopped laughing. Nade didn't wait that long.

She grabbed Ryohei's uninjured hand and dragged both the boys out of the house.

"MY HAND IS FINE NADE!"

"No it isn't."

"BUT NADE!"

"Shut up."

"BUT NADE!"

"Zip it."

"BUT NADE!"

"Nade, no. Put the shinai away—we don't need murder in our front garden!"

"But _Tsuna."_

"Nade, _no_."

"NADE WHY!?"

"You'll go to _jail,_ Nade!"

"I will wring your neck and throw you into the washing machine. Then, I'll make stew out of your remains and feed them to Hajima-san's chihuahua."

"BUT NADE!"

* * *

Nade had walked the three of them all the way to the hospital by the time her parents realised that the children weren't in the house.

She went up to the receptionist, looked her deep in the eye, and, just as the tension mounted and the receptionist started sweating bullets…

Nade turned around and stood behind Tsuna.

Tsuna, shy and stuttering and hysterical, said, "Nade, you needta use words, not give up before you start."

Nade adamantly stood behind him.

Tsuna huffed a breath, both of exasperation and fear, before saying, "A-ano, ma'am…Ryo-nii hit his hand really bad and he broke his bone. C-can you f-fix it please?"

Tsuna had unconsciously widened his eyes in plea, his lips wobbling from the strain of talking to a complete stranger, and his hands were trembling from the leftover trauma of the new beds.

The receptionist didn't stand a chance.

"Of course we can help sweetheart!" she exclaimed, giving him a wide, presumably comforting smile. It had the unfortunate side effect of making Tsuna fear for his life.

"BUT MY HAND IS FINE! I'M A MAN! MEN DON'T FEEL PAIN!" Ryohei exclaimed.

Nade unrepentantly slapped his hand and Ryohei keeled over in pain. She eyed him dispassionately. "Silence peasant."

"R-right," the receptionist blinked, not quite sure what to do with the children. "Where are your parents, sweetheart?"

Tsuna gave a woebegone look of pure sadness. "They's at home. We came to the hospital without telling."

The receptionist had _no_ idea what to do. At all.

"Ummm…" she stalled, not sure of how to proceed. She doubted the four year olds in front of her knew their insurance code, or their home address, or their bank account number.

"Give him a doctor."

All four people turned almost simultaneously to look at the speaker, and lo and behold, there stood Hibari Kyouya, in all his black-haired, grey-eyed, chubby-cheeked glory.

Nade looked at the steel tonfa gripped in his hands curiously, subconsciously running a finger across her shinai, which was strapped to her back as usual.

The receptionist blanched in fear and nodded hastily, asking, "Can I have your name and date of birth please?"

Tsuna didn't know Ryohei's birthday, and he vaguely remembered his last name beginning with a 'sa' but the rest was a blank.

"Sasagawa Ryohei, 26th of August," Nade said casually, the Italian accent heavy in her voice. The receptionist didn't want her to repeat it another time, even though she hadn't understood a word - this girl was _scary_...just something about her was unsettling, in the same way as Hibari-sama.

She quickly typed in a rough approximation and said, "Hibari-sama's personal doctor will see you now."

"BUT MY HANDS ARE FINE!"

No one listened to him.

* * *

"Thank ye for thy help," said Nade, giving Hibari a shallow bow. "Twas much appreciated."

Tsuna was practically hitting the floor with his bow, trembling in fear of the great Hibari Kyouya, the Legend of Namimori that ruled with a tyrannical iron fist.

Nade, ostensibly, had never heard the rumours.

Hibari Kyouya took that to mean she was not cowed by his reputation.

"Hn," he said, arrogance dripping off his every syllable. "Fight me."

Nade, much to Tsuna's horror, contemplated this. Violence was _not_ Tsuna's thing. Violence was _not_ what he wanted _or_ needed in his life.

"Why can't w-we just be friends instead?" he burst out hurriedly, overcoming his fear of the Namimori Elementary Tyrant.

Nade tilted her head in curiosity at this pronouncement. Hibari looked miffed.

Tsuna went swiftly back into his shell.

"We could do both," Nade said, unaware of her twin brother's spinelessness and Hibari Kyouya's ire. "Be friends _and_ fight. Spar I mean. If thou art amenable."

Hibari Kyouya didn't know what amenable meant. Hibari Kyouya didn't care—he'd agree, and if the terms weren't to his liking…

"I'll bite you to death," he said in warning, slightly angling his body so that his tonfa were more visible.

Nade nodded. "Brush your teeth first."

Hibari bristled. "I always brush my teeth."

Nade agreed. "Hygiene is important."

Hibari agreed. "It is."

Thus began their reign of terror.

Tsuna had a _bad_ feeling about this.

* * *

"Wait, you don't have any bill for us to pay?" asked Iemitsu.

The doctor shook his head. "Nade-hime requested this."

Iemitsu worried that Nade had joined a shady cult.

"Anata look!" said Nana, pointing at Nade and some child with mussed black hair and an already-biblical-proportions-level of killer intent - they were brandishing weapons in the Intensive Care Unit and trying to kill each other while talking about the merits of vegetables in clipped sentences. "Na-chan's made a friend!"

And Iemitsu did look, and Iemitsu _did_ see that Nade had made a friend.

Oh well; if she'd joined a shady cult, at least she was the leader.

Iemitsu, wrapping an arm around Nana, proudly watched Tsuna fuss over Ryohei's bandaged hands as he cheered Nade loudly, hollering at the top of his lungs and fisting the air with his heavily bandaged hands, and Nade attempt to bludgeon her new friend to death.

 _As expected of my little potato!_

* * *

 _Sorry, writer's block! But I didn't even mean for Hibari to be in this chapter…he just wrote himself in, the little tosser._

 _*Atashi is the feminine way of referring to yourself, and ore is the masculine way. Of course Nade would pick the masculine way—it's shorter ;)_

 _How was the chapter? Was Hibari acceptably in character? Keep in mind that he's five, so he isn't_ completely _the way he is in canon, mkay? Review and let me know what you liked, preferred hadn't happened, and what you'd like to see next! It gives me ideas, not gonna lie._


	23. The Language Illusion

**Something Simple**

' _Who else has taken 2+ years of a foreign language and still has no clue how to speak it?'_

* * *

Lucia was twenty one when she died.

She remembers this fact very clearly, holds onto it even, because now that she is Nadeshiko and nearly five years old, she is actually twenty six.

No one but her, of course, knows this.

Twenty six years old, while still being stuck at twenty one and heading towards five.

Nadeshiko snorted at the ridiculousness of it all.

From across the room, propped on pillows too large for his head, Tsuna gave her an exasperated look. "Nade, I'm tryna sleep."

Nadeshiko's eyes softened, and she whispered, "Sorry _mio fratello_. I was just thinking."

Tsuna hummed in acknowledgement before burrowing further into his bed covers. Nadeshiko thought that he looked absolutely adorable, like a snug egg wrapped in a warm nest.

She smiled fleetingly before frowning again.

In less than a week was their birthday, and papa would have already left for Italy by then, along with nonno. Mama was understandably distraught, and the only way she dealt with distress was to cook and cook and cook. Also, laundry.

Nadeshiko huffed in amusement. Lucia _hated_ doing laundry—it was the one thing she had missed her mother for while living in…she struggled to remember…

 _Cori_.

Yes, she had run away to Cori, after more than a year trying and failing to get out of central Rome. For a few months, they had been safe. She remembered that.

She remembered holding him close as her boyfriend ranted and raved, screamed that they had to do their bit to help their famiglia— _his_ famiglia, her father's _famiglia_ , never _hers_. She was not a mafiosa. She _wasn't_.

She had been raped and hunted down and thrown away by the mafia, been torn from her son and been killed by the mafia, taught to never use her brain or her natural talent with a blade because the mafia did not need it.

No, she had never been a _mafiosa_ —she had been a victim of its cruellest underbelly.

( _But it was where she belonged, wasn't it?)_

She didn't remember the name of the _famiglia_. She sometimes obsessed over it while at the dojo, and many a little peoples had suffered at her inattention—she needed to hold back against the seven year olds; they were fragile.

This wasn't working.

Nadeshiko rolled over in her bed and stared at the bear's snout.

"Thou requirest a name, me thinks," she whispered into the night.

Tsuna shuffled and blinked at her. "I already has'a name, Nade."

"The bear," she said, pointing at it for emphasis. Tsuna gave her a contemplative look.

" _Orso?"_ he suggested.

"Uninspired," she replied conversationally.

Tsuna sat up in bed and stared at it long and hard.

"What about _Nidoreina?_ " he said, folding his arms around his legs.

Nade hummed. "Queen's Nest. I like it."

Tsuna smiled happily, glad that he'd been helpful.

"Nido for short."

A lull in the dark as a few cars whizzed past in the distance, horns hooting.

"Nade," said Tsuna in a small voice. "Are you still 'wake?"

Nade turned over, staring at him in the darkness, only the edges of shapes illuminated by the streetlights coming through the window.

"Yeah."

"I can't sleep."

"Me neither."

It was quiet for a while. They could hear papa's snoring and nonno's soft voice coming through the wall—he usually took business calls from Italy every night. Tsuna, being a fairly light sleeper at this age, had many a times woken up in the middle of the night to the two sounds.

This had been the longest time papa and nonno had stayed at home—nearly two months actually, and Tsuna had gotten used to it. He would miss them when they were gone...

"Nade?" Tsuna whispered. "I'm sleepy."

Nade hummed in agreement. "Me too."

Silence again as the two twins stared at each other from across the room.

Nade was Lucia, and Lucia had never had a problem falling asleep.

But Lucia was not Nade, who hadn't slept alone since the day she was born.

Somewhere, the sound of the ticking clock hitched, signifying midnight.

Nade slipped out of her covers, dragging her yellow blanket with her, and did a gymnastics routine around the chest of drawers and the bedposts to get to Tsuna's bed.

He shuffled further closer to the wall and she lay down next to him, her head on his knee.

"Good night, Tsuna."

" _Buona notte,_ Nade."

And finally, they fell asleep, Lucia's existential crisis fading into the background as Tsuna's presence lulled her into dreamland, and Tsuna's unease at the silence evaporating with his little sister's comforting solidity.

Together, they breathed.

* * *

"Ah, I see what you mean," said papa, stroking his bristly chin consideringly. "The room _is_ pretty small for the beds."

Tsuna, after the crisis with Ryo-nii and the disaster that was Nade's newfound friendship yesterday, nearly cried tears of joy—finally, someone was _listening_ to him!

Then, papa had to ruin it by saying, "So, we blow up your side of the room or your sister's?"

Tsuna squeaked. "Papa, you can't just blow up your problems!" he said, voice earnestly trembling.

"Sure you can," papa said nonchalantly, "I do it all the time."

The doorbell rang and mama opened it. From downstairs, papa and Tsuna heard Tsuyoshi-san and mama exchanging pleasantries, Nade threatening a goldfish (her Japanese was the stuff of nightmares) and then silence after he bid them goodbye.

A few moments later, Nade, sweaty hair and unruffled expression, joined them in their musings outside the twin's bedroom.

"Ahoy, me sailorias," she greeted, and Tsuna wondered just how much _worse_ her Japanese could get.

"Ahoy to thee as well, _my little potato_ ," papa grinned, ruffling Nade's hair.

In a moment of sudden clarity, Tsuna blinked in horror before staring at papa with narrowed eyes.

 _So_ _ **that's**_ _why Nade's Japanese is getting worse!_

All his hard work over the last few years of his incredibly short life had been for nothing! This realisation, he would later muse, pretty much defined the rest of his life beyond that point.

* * *

Papa had called in some of his construction worker pals, and Nade snorted.

"Ara, they look so rugged, ne Na-chan? Just like anata," mama chirped, bringing her hands together and blatantly staring at the half-naked men sawing and hammering and exploding things in her children's room.

Nade raised an eyebrow at the men and, once more, snorted. Bulky and muscly were not her type.

"Those gents hadst best not hurt me bear," she said, making one of the stronger-looking ones cower in fear.

He'd accidentally placed one of his pliers onto Nade's bed, and…let's just say that he had had the fear of god put in him.

Nade smirked in amusement.

Who knew lullabies sung creepily in Italian while twirling his pliers in one hand and choking one of her stuffed dolls in the other, and then maintaining blatant and smiley eye contact would have that much of a negative impact on a fully grown man that looked like he feasted on steroids every morning?

Certainly not Nade, but _now_ she knew.

Shouldn't have touched her bed, should he have?

And as for the obvious lie that these people were her papa's work buddies, well—who was she to disillusion mama?

Papa must have his reasons, though how he thought ordering them around and not knowing even _one_ of their names would fool anyone into believing he worked with them just boggled her mind.

Tsuna, luckily, had decided to take a break from life and had gone to the back garden to play with his action figures, so he wasn't having an existential crisis over this just yet.

She rubbed her head, feeling the bear-fur soft brown hair and wondering whether there was any more reason for her to pretend her papa wasn't in the mafia.

Mama definitely wasn't, but nonno had been talking to _gli Varia bastardi_ on the phone about succession, so he _definitely_ was.

Nade hated the mafia, but she knew…in the depths of her soul, she _knew_ that she belonged to it. It wasn't like chicken pox, where if you had it once and it was cured, it never happened again.

You never escaped the mafia, and Nade had always belon— _Lucia_ had always belonged to the mafia. She wasn't a mafiosa, but her father had been an accessory, and his friends had definitely been mafia and—

And _he_ had been a mafioso.

By proxy, her honey-bear had always and would always be mafia.

Sometimes, the thought made her unbearably sad. Other times, it just made her helplessly angry. How do you fight a _way of life?_

So Nade didn't dwell on what had been and what hadn't happened yet. If papa wanted to pretend he was a construction worker, and nonno wanted them to believe he was a harmful touristy retiree, then so be it.

"Ara, they're not going to get the room ready in time," mama said, scrunching up her eyebrows in concern, walking back into the hall after having a snuggle session with papa. "You won't have a room to sleep in, Na-chan. What to do?"

Nade hummed in contemplation, wondering where they were going to sleep tonight—certainly not in the dust-and-plaster-covered room, _that_ was for certain.

Papa came out of the room as well, discreetly straightening his rumpled shirt. Nade's eyes softened. So _this_ is what it meant to be happily in love.

Their biggest problem was a half-hearted secrecy from their four year old children.

One of Lucia and her ex-boyfriend's biggest problems had been that he'd treated her like it was her fault he kept on failing his missions and helpfully 'corrected' her character to stop that from happening.

Another problem was that she let him.

The biggest though, was that he wanted to sell their unborn son to his _famiglia_ as an expendable test subject.

Some things can be forgiven. Others cannot.

"Mayhap we slumber in the living room?" Nade suggested.

Tsuna had just walked into the room when he heard mama exclaim joyfully, "A slumber party! That's a wonderful idea, Na-chan! We can invite all your friends!"

Tsuna walked back out.

* * *

 _Look at that, me setting up for next chapter! So what did you think of this one? A bit darker at the beginning, with some grit in the second half as well, but I hoped you enjoyed reading it anyway!_

 _Buona notte - good night. I italicised 'my little potato', not for emphasis, but because it was in Italian, but I hope that was evident in the text, but just in case..._

 _So, what do you think of Lucia now? Not Nade, but Lucia? And Tsuna? And the twins' co-dependence? Reviews are the reason the updates for this story are so frequent. Literally nothing else can motivate me the way your reviews do, so thank you so much! :)_


	24. The Mauled Puppy

**Something Simple**

' _A baby's laughter is the most beautiful sound you will ever hear.  
Unless it's three am.  
And you're home alone.  
And you don't have a baby.'_

* * *

Tsuna was in full body armour, brandishing his weapon at the door as his knees knocked together, his lower lip trembling and his eyes watering with every not-blink.

The Hibari, Terror of Namimori, would be gracing their front doorstep any minute now, and Ryo-nii wouldn't be far behind him, his injury still bubble wrapped. In addition, Yamamoto-san would be bringing his son along as well, and Tsuna could only hope that he would be the slightest bit sensible in order to counteract the Ryo-Hibari-Nade combo _all at the same time._

Tsuna was being pathetically optimistic.

In the distance, Hajima-san's Chihuahua barked, mocking Tsuna.

Nonno moseyed along, a cup of steaming coffee in his hands and bunny slippers on his feet (and socks, at Tsuna's behest—Nonno's feet could get cold _and fall off!_ He'd heard that it could happen!) and, as if it was completely natural, he joined Tsuna in his vigil.

He sipped his coffee and bent down to sit on the floor, balancing his brim-filled cup with a casual elegance that Tsuna would have exclaimed at if he wasn't so high strung.

"Excited for today's sleepover Tsuna?" nonno asked conversationally, a kindly smile on his face.

Tsuna nodded, although the nod looked so insincere that even _he_ winced. "I-I'll manage," he said instead, eyes not leaving the door, weapon still brandished.

Nonno swept a hand through Tsuna's hair and, inexplicably, the fluffy-brown-haired boy felt at ease.

That didn't make him stop brandishing his weapon however; he was at ease, not suicidal.

"I'm just not good with people," Tsuna said softly. "Well, crazy people anyway."

Nonno smiled at him. "Yes you are. You're surrounded by them."

Tsuna giggled despite everything, and at just this moment, through the door came Nade and Yamamoto-san and—

"Takeshi-kun?" asked Tsuna in wide-eyed horror.

"Yo!" Takeshi grinned. "I didn't know you were the brother o' the girl that m' Otou-san walked home e'ryday!"

Tsuna hadn't either. "Umm…"

"Only Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays," Nade corrected, sliding past everyone and looking Tsuna dead in the eye. "Why is thou wearing a salad bowl on thy head? And cereal boxes on thy arms? And sitting in a cardboard box? And _brandishing a plastic spoon?_ "

Tsuna grew a bright red and Takeshi muttered in awe, "Aliens…"

This, thought Tsuna, couldn't get any worse.

"I'll bite you to death."

He stood corrected.

"Remember to brush your teeth," Nade dutifully reminded him.

Chibi Hibari flashed his perfectly white teeth at her and she gave him a thumbs up, not even bothering to look over, and gave nonno a bow just as Ryo-nii burst in. " _Buonasera nonno."_

"Good evening grandfather," mimicked chibi Hibari.

"GOOD EVENING GRANDPA!" exclaimed Ryohei.

"Good evening gramps," chirped Takeshi with a laidback smile.

"Good evening Nade," he said with a warm smile, ruffling her sweat-soaked hair. "Good evening to everyone else as well."

"Everyone," Nade said with a smile. "Must needs prepare their own beds—mama needn't needlessly work in affluence."

"You said that wrong…" Tsuna muttered, but he didn't give her the correct alternative because he was too shocked at what he saw.

Hibari the Terror of Namimori, Takeshi the Obtuse Baseball Fanatic and Ryohei the Oblivious Loudest Adrenaline Junky all picked up a blanket from the pile mama had left in the corner of the living room and made their beds.

Yes, Hibari might have broken Ryo-nii's other hand for no adequately explained reason, and Takeshi managed to irritate Nade enough that she broke the table with her shinai, but Tsuna was quickly learning to look at the positive side of things.

* * *

"Let's play a game!" Takeshi suggested.

"Let's not," Nade replied, glaring at him.

Tsuna, keen to keep the peace, suggested, "How about hide and seek?"

"You lose," Hibari informed him.

"AH! WE'VE ALREADY STARTED!?" Ryohei cried in horror over the sound of an industrial drill from upstairs.

" _Idiota,"_ Nade muttered. "Thou wilt break all remaining limbs if thou dost not seat thine self post-haste."

"Alienspeak!" Takeshi exclaimed, and Tsuna thought that he was a bit _too_ eager in identifying his sister's quirks.

Hibari opened the sliding glass door that led to The Outside when no one was looking, and Tsuna didn't think that that was healthy for his nerves.

"A-Ano, Hibari-san, we's not supposed to go out after dark."

"MEN AREN'T AFRAID OF THE DARK!" decreed Ryohei, and suddenly, everyone was eager to go outside.

Well, everyone except Nade.

"Thou art needlessly enthused. Tis but the front garden; nothing to remark upon," she informed them, snuggling into her covers and yawning.

The boys didn't agree.

"DON'T BE LAZY NADE!" Ryohei yelled, pumping his fist into the air. "BE A MAN!"

Nade snuggled deeper into her covers. "Hibernation mode: activated."

Ryohei stood in aborted motion, unable to decide what to do—that sentence usually worked with his _other_ friends…

Tsuna, meanwhile, was faced with a dilemma. He didn't know which was more dangerous: convincing the others to stay inside, or going with them. The thought of abandoning them to wreak havoc without check didn't even cross his mind.

Hibari toddled off without so much as a backward glance, and Tsuna's decision was made. "W-Wait up Hibari-san!"

Hibari, of course, didn't wait.

* * *

The boys tumbled outside, one after another, but they weren't alone.

Deep in the depths of the night, a pair of luminescent eyes glowed, sharp and cunning and _evil_.

Or so Tsuna would later say through hysterical sobbing.

"THIS IS SO EXTREME!" exclaimed the loud one, bouncing from one foot to the other like an overexcited puppy.

"It's not 'at cold outside," lisped the stupid one, hands in pockets. "Don' aliens like 'a cold?"

The scary one jumped off the laundry basket onto the fence, staring at the _evil creature_. So evil was it that it maintained unflinching eye contact with _Hibari Kyouya_.

Or so Tsuna would later wail through trembling hiccups.

"See?" whimpered the wimpy one. "Nothing special. Let's g-go inside…?"

The scary one was not amused with this decision, and decided to _grab the evil creature in vindictive vindictiveness and—_

"N-no…" the wimpy one whispered in horror, knees knocking together. "Please…no…"

"CUTE DOGGY!" yelled the loud one, pumping his fist in the air. The stupid one came closer to the scary one to pet the _evil creature._

It yipped at Tsuna _with the unfathomable force of its evil evilness_.

Or so Tsuna would claim as Nade raised an eyebrow at him sceptically in the hospital.

The wimpy one backed away slowly, the glowing luminescent eyes following his every move.

And then, as is par the course, Tsuna tripped.

The rest is history.

* * *

While Tsuna was being mauled by a Chihuahua, Lucia dreamed.

She was on a bus, one of the many she'd used to _get away get away get away get the fuck away_ from Rome, from _him_. Her baby was half a year old at this point, sucking on a dummy and staring at her, wide blue eyes staring at her tense shoulders.

The bus rolled past honking traffic, rattled over uneven roads, and stopped far too many times for Lucia to rest against the window. She ran a hand through her baby's soft dark hair, heart melting as he leaned into the touch. _"Mio orsetto,"_ she sighed, inexplicably sad. _"You deserve better."_

She remembered this moment clearly; she'd begun playing with his fingers, gently brushing her fingers against his soft palms, and he'd pulled the dummy out of his mouth, watching her hand curiously. She must have brushed a sensitive spot just then, because he began laughing joyfully, the charming sound infectious.

It was the first time he'd laughed, and it was the first time she'd laughed since he'd been born.

They'd gotten off at the next stop, and the bus driver had recognised them, but—

The dream froze, suspended in time, and her baby was besieged with sputtering coughs.

" _Mukuro!"_ she screamed, holding him and thumping his back and watching the shadows weave around him, changing his form to a six year old's.

There was blood on his hands, and he was shaking in agony, eyes scrunched up in pain, as his bloody coughs subsided. _"M…mama?"_ he asked, so afraid and suspicious and hopeful at the same time that Lucia wanted to— _whack something with a shinai—_ hold him and never let him go.

" _Sì, mio orsetto,"_ she said gently, brushing his hair out of his eyes with a soft smile on her face, _"mama's here; you can be weak now."_

He collapsed into her arms, cold and clammy and so so grateful. She held him as he sobbed, listened as he gibbered about needles and liquids inside that _burned_ and powders that seared his _bones_.

She held him, because she didn't know what else to do.

She held him, and it was the only thing that stopped him from breaking.

* * *

"Only you," Nadeshiko looked on in amusement, "would get mauled by a Chihuahua."

Tsuna sniffled, left hand and right leg in casts and bandages all over his scratched face. "It was _scary_ Nade!"

She patted him condescendingly. " _Mio cucciolo, getting bested by a dog…mio Dio!"_

* * *

Nagi was an innocent girl.

Nagi wanted to make friends.

She stared shyly at the children playing in the park, giggling and laughing, yelling and bossing each other around, and she wanted it so much it physically _hurt_.

But Nagi turned away, because why should freaks like her, who couldn't even talk without mumbling or get good grades, she, who was good for nothing but disappointment and failure, deserve happiness?

Mama said she didn't.

Nagi walked away, tears held back.

After all, if your hopes are stepped on enough times, it becomes normal to feel empty.

* * *

 _GAH! This chapter should've been easy to write! How did this become so hard! STUPID WRITER'S BLOCK!  
Seriously, guys, if the quality is too bad, tell me to take it down, _please _. Ugh!  
_ _  
I mean, I spent well over a month, and it STILL isn't 2000 words! You deserve so much better than this, and I tried, but if I waited any longer for the muses, I'd NEVER publish a chapter because of the guilt, so I dived in anyway…_

 _Please review? We got Nagi, Mukuro, Takeshi, Hibari, Ryohei and nonno, all in one go! :) Oh, and for anyone who's forgotten, Nagi=Chrome_


	25. The Chalk Club

**Something Simple**

 _'My decision-making skills closely resemble that of a squirrel trying to cross the street.'_

* * *

The second time Tsuna went in for a major surgery was on his fifth birthday, four days after papa and nonno had left for Italy.

They were at school, no rest for the wicked and all that, and so, obviously, Toshiro-sensei was blamed for it.

Tsuna and Nade had barely cared that it was their birthday, owing to the fact that mama had forgotten completely and Tsuyoshi-san's wife was in the hospital.

But that was neither here nor there.

They were outside, playing throw-the-ball-and-catch-it-because-Toshiro-sensei-forgot-his-lesson-plans, and Takeshi didn't seem to know the difference between gently throwing the ball at little Kyoko-chan, and bowling for the World Series.

He would never learn either.

Tsuna wanted to protect Kyoko-chan, even though the two hadn't spoken to each other all that much for the last year or so—different social circles and all that, Tsuna would muse. She was universally loved, and Tsuna was universally considered an alien—and two out of four of his limbs were in casts (there were deliciously salacious rumours about that, ranging from cat-napping incidents to yakuza car chases—you never knew with Nade-hime's brother.)

The point was, when it was Takeshi's turn to throw the ball to Kyoko-chan, Tsuna knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that all there would be left of her was a smudge on the school wall three feet away. So he yelled, "Wait!"

Takeshi threw it anyway, and a split second after, he realised what he'd done, the same instant that Nade realised what the yell was about.

Kyoko-chan braced herself, Tsuna choked on some spit, Takeshi mentally prepared himself for a yelling, and Nade's shinai whacked the ball away so hard, it split in two.

Everyone sort of, just, paused for a moment, all of them blinking at the shinai-wielding five year old samurai alien boss, wondering why they weren't more surprised by this.

"Thou art safe, _idiota's_ little sister," Nade said, sheathing her shinai and nodding to Toshiro-sensei's plaster-white face. "Proceed, mortal."

Toshiro-sensei quickly scrambled to comply.

But with the ball… _lost_ , Toshiro-sensei had a, what one might call, Bright Idea.

Tsuna would learn to fear them.

"Um…l-let's play hopscotch!" Toshiro-sensei said, inspiration making him bolder than he usually was in Nade's presence. "See, I'll draw the squares and—ah, it looks like Hotaru-sensei's class already drew the squares…"

He looked like a wilted flower, so to cheer him up (and partially out of guilt), Takeshi exclaimed, "We can make'r _own_ hoskuchu!"

And then all the kids started chanting, "Hoskuchu, hoskuchu, hoskuchu!" Toshiro-sensei's self-preservation senses were tingling.

Tsuna, being an expert linguist by this point, realised that everyone was saying it wrong. But, also being a frustrated pronunciation-corrector, he knew how to pick and choose his battles.

Chalk was brought out by overly-eager children, Nade was wondering why the clouds looked like baby bears (and whether papa would be able to get her one as a pet), Tsuna was trying not to let his danger-from-crazy senses go into overdrive, and Toshiro-sensei was busy making sure Shouji didn't ingest the pink chalk. ("It looks like marshmallows, sensei!" "But it isn't…" "But what if it is, sensei? Have you checked?" "Shouji-chan…not up your nose!")

"DRAW!" Takeshi exclaimed, brandishing his piece of chalk like an AK-47. The children eagerly wielded the chalk like master artists.

Unfortunately, given that none of them really knew what they were supposed to be doing (no one had really been paying attention until Takeshi had screamed 'draw', to be fair), the results were…

Artistic?

Nade, having no idea what 'hoskuchu' was, decided to draw a shark wearing cool sunglasses, while Tsuna stared in sad horror, because _of course_ things in his life could never be normal.

Takeshi, having a vague idea that squares were involved, deftly squiggled one onto the floor, before deciding that it needed to look more like a baseball pitch. Next thing he knew, he was drawing an entire game, complete with complex diagrams about trajectory and forces, without even realising that that was what he was doing.

Kyoko and her four female friends, had simply decided to draw flowers and smiley faces, and sometimes both, because hey, chalk! No one but the teachers used chalk!

Shouji, the boy who sat next to Nade, when Toshiro-sensei joined the fray of scribbling five year olds, finally ate the chalk. He then promptly decided it, in fact, _didn't_ taste like marshmallows, and spat it all over Shizuka's uniform, the girl who sat next to Tsuna.

Takeshi's posse, separate from their leader, were going mental with the unheard-of liberation, madly screaming and yelling with POWER and FREEDOM and OH LET'S DRAW TOSHIRO-SENSEI'S BUTT!

The results varied.

Tsuna, the valiant child, tried to help Toshiro-sensei stop Shizuka from ripping all of Shouji's hair out.

"My mommy will find you, and she'll tell _your_ mommy!" she shrieked. Shouji stuck his tongue out, yelling, "SENSEI, YOU LIED TO ME!"

Toshiro-sensei was contemplating the plausibility of murder.

Tsuna made some abortive hand gestures, squeaking out a "St-stop!" every ten seconds, before something…inexplicably…inexplicable happened.

Tsuna's head caught on fire, everyone instantly felt like hugging him, a raccoon came out of the bushes, three birds pooped on Toshiro-sensei's head in smug smugness, and Nade sneezed.

Then, the moment was ruined, because the raccoon tripped Tsuna up, who broke his _other_ arm, his _other_ leg, and his nose.

Shouji, in addition, vomited on Nade's drawing.

The glare he received scarred him mentally. For life.

In the hubbub, everyone forgot about the fire that didn't burn.

He _was_ an alien, after all.

* * *

It was a nice, windy day at the end of October when the twins received a parcel from papa and nonno.

"Ooh, I wonder what he sent!" Nana exclaimed, carefully placing it on the table as she quietly slipped the attached letter to her into her apron.

Nade sleepily pulled her blankets around herself tighter, sinking into further hibernation every day.

Tsuna was in full-body cast, so he couldn't really move.

Well, his fingers could move, so that's where Nana helpfully placed the attached letter so he could read it to them.

Tsuna squinted at the unfamiliar writing. "Nade, I think it's in _Italiano_."

Nade narrowed her eyes at the sheet of paper and huffily shuffled closer, taking it out of his feeble grip.

She read it out loud with much sniggering.

 _Dear little potato and puppy,_

 _Papa wishes you a happy fifth birthday! Nonno sends you hugs, and he tells me to tell puppy that he's wearing socks all the time, just like he promised. I hope my potato's kendo classes are going well, and that puppy hasn't broken any more limbs!  
I miss both of you lots and lots, and I hope you liked your birthday presents!  
I followed a theme this time!_

 _Love,  
Papa and Nonno_

"Hasn't broken any more limbs," Tsuna whimpered. "Sure…"

Nana giggled, having put two and two together. "You've exceeded anata's expectations, Tsu-kun!"

Nade ripped into her present and unearthed a little tuna-fish gold charm, with tiny sapphires embedded for scales.

Tsuna had received a box of tuna-fish shaped crackers.

Again.

* * *

"NADE!" Ryohei exclaimed as she entered the house after kendo practise. "I'VE JOINED THE SWIMMING TEAM NADE!"

"Ryo-chan," she said sweetly, "thou belongs at the bottommost bed of fishes."

Ryohei understood none of that, but gave her a thumbs up anyway.

* * *

Tsuna lost yet another front tooth as he bit into a carrot.

He was traumatised.

* * *

"NADE!" exclaimed Ryohei, "I'VE JOINED THE GYMNASTICS CLUB NADE!"

She shushed him. "I'm attempting the victory for staring contesting."

Hibari Kyouya's tonfa was locked in mortal combat with her shinai as they stared into each other's soul.

"BUT NADE!"

"Shut up, _idiota!"_

* * *

Mama was cooking dinner before they headed out for the New Year's Eve celebration (Tsuna was now in possession of two out of four of his limbs, so getting him to the shrine would be a trial and a half) and Nade staring at her burnt-yellow kimono's tiny bird designs, when Ryohei burst through their front door.

"NADE!" he exclaimed, his own bright yellow yukata already muddy from the full-pelt running he'd done to reach their house. "I'VE JOINED THE KARATE CLUB NADE!"

"Good afternoon to thee too, peasant," she said absent-mindedly.

"Ara," mama exclaimed, taking out another bowl for Ryohei. "Weren't you in the bird-watching club last week?"

"No, that was the week before," Tsuna corrected. "Last week it was the origami club."

Ryohei sat down for the meal mama was ladling out. "I JUST HAVEN'T FOUND THE RIGHT ONE! TILL THEN, I'LL TRY EVERYTHING!"

Tsuna quailed at the force of his enthusiasm. Nade yawned. "Just pick one."

"BUT NADE! NOTHING IS EXTREME ENOUGH!" Ryohei argued.

"Maa, maybe Tsu-kun should join a club as well?" mama said questioningly, placing the bowls of miso soup in front of her children and Ryohei.

Tsuna whimpered. "Mama, I'm fine!"

Mama scrunched her eyebrows up in worry. "But Tsu-kun doesn't have many friends, ne? Joining a club will help! Na-chan's already in a club too!"

She wasn't, but she didn't want to disabuse the notion either, so Nade took out her magic wand and whacked Ryohei on the head to distract him from outing her.

She didn't have to worry about Tsuna outing her. There was some serious trust over there.

"WE CAN LOOK FOR A CLUB TOGETHER TSUNA!" Ryohei pumped his fist in the air. "LET'S FIND OUR DESTINY!"

Tsuna sank into his seat, despairing already.

* * *

They were counting down for the New Year near the shrine, eating piping hot anpan.

Sasagawa Kyoko and her mother were with Kyoko's female friends' parents group, while her father and Ryohei were, with great relief on the father's part, celebrating it with the Sawada family.

Tsuna was a bit sad, but after Nade explained that females had what she referred to as "hive mentality", and then referenced several vectors and pathogens such as "cooties" and "gender stereotypes", Tsuna understood better.

When he asked Nade why _she_ didn't have any female friends, she'd smiled sadly and said, _"I have you, and that's all I need."_

Tsuna thought that that was incredibly sad.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR TSUNA, NADE, NADE'S MAMA, TOU-SAN!" Ryohei screamed at the top of his lungs.

Nade, having not been allowed to take her shinai with her, whipped out her trusty magic wand and gleefully whacked him over the head.

Tsuna, much as he disapproved of violence, was grateful.

Sasagawa Ryouta couldn't stop laughing.

* * *

Ryohei burnt his eyebrows before the instructor even told them to start baking.

Nade sniggered as Tsuna tried to get the electrical mixer to work. Then, the cake batter exploded in his face. Then, the egg crate smashed onto his head when Ryohei accidentally elbowed into it. Then, his leg cast tripped a girl right into his cake batter.

Then, when Tsuna and Ryohei managed to put their cakes into the oven, the building caught on fire.

"COOKING CLUB, FAIL!"

Nade started full out laughing.

Coincidentally, a passer-by's dog had a heart attack and died.

The word "demon" and "puppy killer" were thrown around.

* * *

Tsuna finally got all his casts off. It was the middle of March, and it was celebrated by attempting to inculcate him into the Aikido Club.

"He's a wimp!" One of the junior members yelled.

Ryohei punched him in the face.

Nade shinai-ed the leader to within an inch of his life, for the lols.

And her reputation just _kept_ building.

Now the words "unreasonable" and "deaf to the pleas for mercy" were thrown around.

* * *

"I LOVE THIS!" Ryohei exclaimed, punching someone in the nose. "THE BOXING CLUB IS EXTREME!"

"In hindsight," Nade mused, lazily fingering her shinai. "This outcome was obvious."

Tsuna was just grateful the bruising wasn't too bad. And he was also grateful to note that he _wouldn't_ be joining the boxing club. The instructor wasn't eager, he didn't meet the functionally-coordinated criterion, and—

"JOIN THE BOXING CLUB TSUNA!"

—his days as a free man were numbered, if the unholy glee in Ryohei's eyes were to be believed.

* * *

"Has your herbivore joined a club yet?" Hibari dodged out of the way of the incoming shinai.

"No," Nade replied. "I am grateful for thy paying of his numerous hospital bills."

Hibari slashed one of his tonfa at her legs, which she jumped over. "The books said "friends" don't pay for each other's things."

"And a Hibari takes orders from no one?" she stated his reasoning correctly, shinai clashing with tonfa. "Not even books?"

Hibari smirked.

He'd picked his "friend" well.

Though the word was far too herbivorous for his tastes.

* * *

 _1000 follows guys! ONE THOUSAND FOLLOWS! WOOOHOOOO!_

 _Also, this is my version of a timeskip. Hehe.  
Hibari, Ryohei, Ryohei's father, the boxing club, Nana's meddling, Toshiro-sensei, children you won't need to remember (at least, Nade won't), Takeshi, Takeshi's posse…huzzah people!  
AND it's over 2000 words long too!  
Also, what would you guys like to see for Tsuna and Nade's first day of Elementary School next chapter? Also, what did you think of this chapter? Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH!  
ALSO, THIS IS SO AWESOME YOU GUYS! XD  
Review please?_


	26. The Elementary Piano

**Something Simple**

 _'My neighbours listen to some excellent music, whether they like it or not.'_

* * *

Namimori was fairly populous, for a town. However, it wasn't so populous that it was afforded more than one elementary school for its children.

This was why, on a bright March morning, under the careful supervision of a brunette, dead-eyed old woman, all of Toshiro-sensei's class filed into the registration room of Namimori Elementary School, their sensei quivering himself into a stroke, to sign up.

Nade was standing in front of Tsuna in their single file, waiting patiently for their turn to write their name and have their picture taken, as well as their phone number and address. Mama had cheerfully filled out their details on a piece of paper, but Namimori liked to have handwritten records.

Though _why_ toddlers' handwritings were needed, when it looked as calligraphic as chicken scratch, was up for debate.

Of course, Nade had a vague feeling that this wasn't _normal_ , but Namimori ran in an almost different dimension to the rest of Japan, so she decided to keep her musings to herself.

"What if I'm not good enough?" Tsuna fussed, tears threatening to leak out of the side of his eyes. "I can't even keep all my limbs intact for two weeks straight!"

Tsuna _was_ having the most unfortunate luck with his limbs, Nade mused. Why, just last week, he'd twisted his ankle on the way home from school because a cat barrelled right into his shin.

Tsuna swore up and down that the cat was out to get him, but Nade was pretty sure the cat just wanted to be petted by her _fratello_.

Perspective, she mused, was everything.

"Sawada Nadeshiko," the dead-eyed woman read off a piece of paper before snapping her gaze at the little girl. " _You're_ Sawada Nadeshiko?"

Nade nodded, not caring in the slightest that she was being inspected like a particular interesting species of dung beetle. She had better things to think about.

She waited at the X-marked spot on the floor for the photographer to snap a photo of her, before very carefully copying mama's hiragana and kanji with deft precision onto the form Toshiro-sensei had tremblingly given her.

The last year or so had done wonders for her faking-competence-in-written-Japanese.

The dead-eyed woman called her when she was done, and Nade found it a tad strange that she wanted her to go into the back alleyway, but meh.

She silently followed the woman outside, into the mild spring weather, and waited for her to speak.

"You've been causing us quite a lot of trouble," the dead-eyed woman said with a deadpanned voice. "I think ripping your head off and mailing it to Hibari-sama ought to send the message."

Nade raised an eyebrow at her, having understood 72% of that. The blush on her face bloomed involuntarily at the mention of Hibari-sama.

"Head ripping is a violation of peace," she said absentmindedly. "Thou wilt desist."

* * *

Wilhelmina Constance Theodora Lynn Stacey Esther Montgomery had heard of Sawada Nadeshiko's reputation, but nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.

She feinted to the left, and the little girl just continued staring at her, not even drawing her weapon.

Maybe, she thought, this really _is_ a normal kid, and our info was wrong. Maybe, she grouched, next time, they'll send someone _other_ than a specialised assassin to deal with collateral.

She was a bit pissed off.

Wilhelmina Constance Theodora Geraldine Samantha Elspeth Montgomery decided to make this quick. She took out a gun and aimed it directly at the little girl's head.

"Sorry, princess," she said in English. "It's just business."

Suddenly, the girl's eyes widened and then narrowed, her face going from white to green to pink to red in the span of two seconds.

"Put that away," the girl intoned, and without Wilhemina Constance Theodora Lynn Stacey Esther Montgomery's realising, the shinai was in her hand and held menacingly forth. **"Now."**

A chill crept up Wilhemina Constance Theodora Lynn Stacey Esther Montgomery's spine, though she didn't know _why_. It was just a seven year old child…right?

Wilhemina Constance Theodora Lynn Stacey Esther Montgomery cocked her gun, ready to shoot. A stick of bamboo wasn't going to stop her.

As soon as she thought this, her vision fizzled and died.

* * *

Nade's mind was flashing rapidly to her last day as Lucia Chrome, so by the time she stopped seeing red and hearing children crying, the dead-eyed woman was nicely dismembered, with chunks of her eyes littering the back alleyway.

Nade blinked, before shrugging and walking away.

 _She_ wasn't cleaning that up.

* * *

Toshiro-sensei had cried many tears of joy at their "graduation", and he may or may not have wet himself when Nade smiled at him in casual politeness. Mama had taken several photos, wept over them cheerfully during the break, and sent papa several copies.

Papa and nonno had sent each of the twins a letter, detailing in superfluous words how _proud_ of their _patatina_ and _bambino_ they were.

 _Oh my darling potato! And puppy!_

 _If only papa could be there to see the look on your sensei's face! The pictures are enough to make my kidneys explode! I showed them to nonno, and they postponed the meeting he was in because he couldn't stop giggling!_

 _Love,  
Papa_

"He made nonno's kidneys explode!?" Tsuna shrieked in terror. "Why would he do that!?"

" _No, no, look at it again_ ," Nade said with a grin. " _It says papa burst his kidneys_."

" _That doesn't make it better!"_ Tsuna flipped out in frustration, forgetting completely that his leg was in a cast after a bird accidentally head-butted into his back while he was playing hide-and-seek, and then a badger had come out of the bushes and wrapped around his leg as he crashed into the asphalt at the only angle that would've dislocated his kneecap.

Only Tsuna.

On a side note, Hibari Kyouya had come over and dropped off a small parcel to their house. In it was a badge that said 'Disciplinary Committee' and a hacked-off thumb.

Tsuna flipped out at this too. "Where'd he get a finger?!"

Nade hummed. "Probably the assassin I killed."

She had _no_ idea why Tsuna stopped talking to her for two weeks, especially because he started sleeping in the same bed as her again.

Boys were so confusing…

* * *

Rokudo Mukuro was lying on the floor of his cell, having just woken up from one of his good dreams.

His shoulders ached, his insides felt bruised, his ribs were cracked, and yet, he had a small smile on his face.

Then, the tears started.

They startled out of him. He wasn't used to tears; he'd learned early on that showing this kind of weakness made things just that bit harder for the test subjects. The scientists had a special word for them: _agnelli_.

Lambs. The metaphor was lost on him, who didn't know what a lamb looked like or what it implied, but…

 _Mio orsetto_

He wasn't a bear cub. But if the dreams were to be believed, he'd _been_ one, once. A long time ago, before the Estraneo famiglia, before the pain, before he could remember.

He took a deep breath and pushed himself to a sitting position. The covers were rough underneath him, and his limbs were shaking with the effort—he was unused to physical exertion. They hadn't reached that phase of testing yet.

His mind, however, was losing that perpetual foggy quality, and bit by bit, just as it always did after a good dream, Mukuro's mind thrummed with power.

He went into himself, cloaking himself in the Mist, bathing his being, soothing his debased body, shutting out the external world and retreating inside, deeper and deeper and deeper, till he finally reached Inside.

It was an earthy-grey room with sunlight streaming through a window. There were doors with no locks opening out to the sunlit field _everywhere_ , and he knew he could leave whenever he wanted to, and no one could stop him.

He was slumped on a large, warm chair that let him sink into it like a hug (he didn't remember what a real hug felt like, but he'd memorised the ones in his dreams) and his internal eyes opened.

" _Hell,"_ he said, and Inside, his voice wasn't scratchy or weak or hoarse. It was smooth and even and powerful, just as it should be. Just as, if he had his way, it _would_ be. _"I have seen Hell. Now, how do I lie about that?"_

He got off his chair and padded to the door closest to him, swinging it wide open and feeling what he presumed fresh wind to feel like. He only had faint memories of that, so it was harder to recreate.

He walked through vineyards, plucked cherry tomatoes with gleeful ease, felt the grass between his toes and, somewhere quietly, _she_ was laughing.

Mukuro _knew_ it was a dream; his mama had given him up to the Estraneo willingly. She'd tossed him aside like day old bread. He knew this. They'd told him, and why would they lie about this when there was no gain?

But…

 _Mio orsetto_

" _Mama,"_ he whispered softly, letting the wind carry away his voice. It felt…he focused on the feeling and brought it out Inside, and the skies painted themselves with warm golden colours and bright reds and wispy pinks and skylark blues and happy oranges.

" _They lied,"_ he concluded, staring at a sky he didn't remember seeing. _"Mama didn't leave me. She loved me."_

He was basing this assumption off of a dream, but…

 _Mio orsetto_

His instincts told him that it was the truth. He'd _really_ heard that voice before, those words before, and if he focused hard enough, if he sifted enough sand, he could find _real_ warm hugs, _real_ playful hair ruffles, _real_ cooing, _real_ love.

He wasn't a bear cub, but he _had_ been once.

As soon as he accepted this fact, believed it with all his being, a gunshot rang through the reddening field.

He froze in fear, and then a loud yell echoed through the Inside: _**Where's the boy, you little slut?**_

That voice made him shiver, that voice made his eyes burn, and now he could remember faintly, when he screwed his brain in concentration, golden hair loosely curling spilling onto the dirty floor, swimming in red red red blood as eyes so like his watched him with a crippling sadness and fear and desperation and _goodbye, mio orsetto._

He didn't remember any more than that, but did it matter?

It didn't matter whether she loved him or not.

His mama was dead.

* * *

Nade, or Lucia really in this case, was wondering whether she was going mad, or if seeing her son growing up in her dreams was a bizarre coping mechanism.

Of course, the time and place for these musings was definitely _not_ when locked in a kendo match with one of your instructors, and certainly not when it was a tag team match, but this was Sawada Nadeshiko, and didn't that just say it all?

Even semi-distracted, she managed to sweep the instructor off his feet and pin him down, and in the horrified silence of the dojo, she found the answer to be unnecessary.

After all, if she was dreaming it up, then it wasn't hurting anyone, was it? It was only in her head, after all.

Her baby was dead.

"W-Winner!" squeaked one of her senpai, looking at her in abject horror.

She brushed her fringe off her sweaty forehead, frowning in unimpressed-ness. Letting Tsuna talk her into a fringe was a stupid thing, but he did the _puppy_ eyes and the _pouty_ face and the _tearing up_ and she couldn't say no.

"Thank you for your services," she said, bowing gracefully, if without any real respect, and walked to the changing room.

In the last year and a half, Sawada Nadeshiko had become taller, more verbose, and scarier to the masses.

She didn't really understand that, however, and simply assumed that that was the way people had always reacted to her presence.

She wasn't entirely wrong.

It was April now, and the beginning of a new academic year. It was also the start of her Elementary School life, and Tsuna was over the moon about it.

Nade, as was usual with these kinds of things, didn't seem to give a fuck one way or the other.

She'd changed out of her hakama, grateful that they'd finally given her a designated female changing room after being asked only once.

Very prompt service.

She stripped off her sweaty training clothes and wrapped them up in a bundle into her gym bag, before taking a towel and waltzing over to the shower.

They'd even installed a shower just for her.

Very grateful, she was.

When she'd thanked Mochida-sensei of course, he'd giggled nervously and started frothing at the mouth.

She didn't quite understand the reaction, but she found that she quite liked it.

After washing away the soap-suds she'd lathered herself with, Nade wrapped her body with a towel, careful to scoop her hair and wring it of any excess water, wondering whether she should cut it (her hair was reaching her waist, and she thought maybe shoulder-length better suited her now).

Her eyelashes had water bejewelling them, and it made her orangey-brown eyes stand out more.

She donned a yellow shirt, pulled on a sky blue skirt, clicked on her bracelet (three charms on it—a potato, a tuna, and, for her sixth birthday, a little shinai-wielding samurai), and tied the floral-blue-Italian scarf nonno had gotten her for her third birthday on her head like a hairband, her fringe already half-dried and fluffing.

White socks and black shoes later, bag slung over her shoulder and shinai strapped to her back, the six year old girl braved the spring winds and made her way across the street to TakeSushi to wait for her escort.

The restaurant door tinkled as she entered to the sound of chopping wood and the smell of delicious fish and dashi.

"Be with you in a minute, Nadeshiko-chan!" Yamamoto Tsuyoshi called out, looking up from chopping some sashimi into perfectly even-sized slices.

Nade nodded and took a seat that she'd now claimed as her own, gazing out the window.

" _midori tanabiku namimori no  
dai naku shou naku nami ga ii  
itsumo kawaranu sukoyaka kenage  
aa...tomo ni utaou namimori chuu~"_

Nade's eyes widened as she watched a mini-parade going down the street, singing the Namimori anthem.

"I miss music," she mused, surprised at herself. Lucia had loved sneaking out of the house to attend one of the more risque gatherings of mafia to spy on the one pianist she had access to.

 _Lavina..._

The girl had been younger than she'd been, and she'd been so much more trapped than Lucia, but she'd been so _beautiful_.

"Innocence where innocence is dead is not innocence, but the illusion is..." she murmured. "How do you say? The illusion is beautiful."

Lavina and she had never spoken, but her music...Lucia had rarely cried at much after she lost her virginity, but the music Lavina played made even the hardest hearts melt.

The music had touched her _soul._

"I would love to hear Lavina play," she said to herself, still surprised by the depth of her longing.

Even as she sat in TakeSushi, Nadeshiko was sitting in _Onda Nera_ and sipping a Prosecco, eyes closed and listening to the tinkling of the piano as Lavina's fingers glided along the ivory keys.

* * *

"Lavina? You're sure?" asked Iemitsu, eyebrows scrunched together.

"Yes, anata...who is that?" Nana asked over the phone. "Yamamoto-san said he heard Na-chan mention her, but I've never heard of any Rawu-ina."

Iemitsu wondered how he was going to get Lavina to play for his daughter, when the woman had been dead for over two years now. "Hmmm...wait, I think she had a son I could borrow..."

"Anata?" rang Nana's voice over the phone. "Is Lavina pretty?"

Iemitsu answered in the affirmative, still piecing together how he would transport an Italian musician to Namimori without revealing where his family was 'hiding'.

"Ah, I see," came Nana's voice, with a weird tone in it that Iemitsu immediately picked up.

"Nana? Is everything alright?" he asked.

There was a ring of false cheer in Nana's voice as she said, "Everything's fine, anata! Well, bye!"

The line went dead, and Iemitsu got the distinct impression he'd just scorned a woman.

 _Well, I was due in Namimori soon anyway..._

* * *

 _Sorry for the wait!_ _My grandma died, so…things were a bit hectic, if that even is the right word. Extra long chapter to make up for it!  
So what did you think of this chapter?_

 _Hibari? Nade? Mukuro? Mochida? Tsuyoshi? Nana? Iemitsu? Not much Tsuna in this one, but guess who's going to make an appearance soon?_

 _Review please?_


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